Question: Your group is a team of KraftHeinz Company (www .kraftheinzcompany.com) marketing interns. The company has asked you to propose new guidelines for helping it promote food to children in a socially responsible way. As the third-largest consumer packaged food and beverage company in North America, KraftHeinz's 2014 sales exceeded $29 billion. The company projects steady growth but would like your help in boosting growth. One of Kraft's largest brands is Oscar Mayer Lunchables, described as making lunch fun and targeted to busy parents who want a quick lunch to send with their children to school or keep on hand as an after-school snack. One of the options is Lunchables with Juice, Nachos Cheese Dip, and Salsa. However, there is a growing controversy about the social responsibility of directly marketing to children when the food is unhealthy-high in fat, sugar, and salt, but low in nutrition. There is a societal concern with the growing rate of obesity in children and the increased incidence of diabetes that results from childhood obesity. In response, most food and beverage companies have agreed to follow voluntary guidelines created by the Better Business Bureau, termed the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI). The guidelines ask for participating companies to pledge to advertise only healthy choices during children's programs, defined as those with an audience of 35 percent or more children under 12. Kraft would like to have a reputation as a socially responsible company. Accordingly, Kraft would like to create internal guidelines that will help it market Lunchables (as well as other packaged food items) responsibly and gain the approval of medical professionals, parents, and watchdog groups.48
1. Visit the Kraft food website (www.lunchables .com) and review the Lunchables products, as well as other packaged food products that Kraft offers. Discuss among your group members the extent to which the product options are healthy choices.
2. What changes would you recommend to the CFBAI pledge in order to ensure that the primary audience watching advertisements for Kraft packaged foods will not be children? Describe alternative guidelines that Kraft might adopt.
3. Identify other actions that Kraft might take in order to demonstrate that it is a food company that genuinely cares about children's health and a company that would like to help reverse the trend of increasing childhood obesity.
4. If your group believes that the company is not responsible for personal choices that consumers make to eat unhealthy food, then describe how the company should respond to activist groups and public health officials that are urging companies to stop producing and marketing unhealthy foods