Soft drinks are suspected to contribute to the global obesity crisis. For instance, the World Health Organization concluded that there is probable scientific evidence to support an association between soft drink consumption and obesity[1]. It reported that the marketing of soft drinks contributes to the global obesity crisis.
Soft drink consumption has skyrocketed. Since 1997, per capita consumption of soft drinks has increased by double digits each year in the largest soft drink markets: the United States, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Germany, and China[2]. Annual consumption in the U.S. is highest at 161 liters per capita[2]. Between 56% and 85% of American school-age children drink at least one soft drink daily, with the highest amounts ingested by adolescent males. Of this group, 20% consume 4 or more servings daily[3].
A 12-oz soft drink consumed daily has been associated with a 0.18 kg/m2 (BMI units) increase in a child's body mass index and a 60% increase in risk of obesity[4]. Sugar-sweetened soft drinks are associated with obesity, probably because over consumption is a particular problem when energy is ingested in liquid form[5] and because these drinks represent the leading source of added sugar in the diet[4].
In the United Kingdom and the United States, government officials and health experts have called for limits on the marketing of "junk food" including soft drinks[6, 7]. Recommendations for marketing limits are based, in part, on studies of food advertising on television[8–11]. Especially during children's programming, televised food advertising typically "sells" the idea by associating the product with joy and happiness for the child[12]. Such advertisements have typically promoted foods high in fat, sugar, and salt, and ignored fruits, vegetables, and complex carbohydrate sources[8–10]. For instance, during Saturday morning children's programming in the U.S., 5.6% of ads were for soft drinks, but only 1.6% were for milk and 0% were for fruit juice[8]. Studies on advertising exposure and eating choices have focused on children, and indicate that children tend to seek out foods that are heavily advertised[10, 13, 14].
The presence of branded products in movies is often a form of paid advertising[15, 16] yet no studies examine portrayals of branded soft drinks in popular movies. Product placement occurs when an advertiser pays a movie studio to put its product in a movie. Placement fees paid by advertisers range from $5,000 to $100,000, and are sometimes waved in exchange for promotional tie-ins where advertisers feature the movie as part of their regular product marketing. The movie industry charges more when the branded product is consumed by an actor[17, 18].
Product placements in movies have been used to sell fast food, cars, cigarettes, beer, and soft drinks, and are negotiated by third-party product placement companies. An exception is Coca Cola which has its own product placement office in Hollywood[16]. Unlike explicit advertising on television or billboards, product placement in movies is covert. According to one beverage company executive, "When a product is embedded in the content of a movie or a show, it can carry increased credibility with our target audience[19]."
The focus of this study is on movie portrayals, not on their effects. Furthermore, we assume that many appearances of soft drinks in movies are paid, but the proprietary nature of product placement makes it impossible to verify payment. Nevertheless, there is cause for concern about the possible effects of implicit advertising in movies. Movies provide vicarious influences for viewers in the form of abundant symbolic modeling[20]. According to Bandura, modeling influences were confined to the behavior exhibited in one's community until the advent of mass media. Now symbolic modeling is provided by film, television and other forms of mass media and enables people to transcend the bounds of their immediate social environment[21]. Health behaviors repeatedly shown in movies become widely accepted as normative and might include frequent consumption of soft drinks as a replacement for milk by children and adolescents or consumption of extra calories by physically inactive children, adolescents, and adults. If attractive, physically fit role models viewed on the screen demonstrate a preference for drinking soft drinks, then viewers may want to demonstrate the same preference for soft drinks. No negative consequences of regular consumption of soft drinks are portrayed on screen. This implies that routinely consuming soft drinks is a desirable part of an athletic, healthy lifestyle, and is the more acceptable beverage of choice.
This study examines the use of popular American movies as a potential vehicle for advertising soft drinks by investigating several issues. First, we examined the prevalence of branded soft drinks. To better understand these prevalence data, we compared the frequency with which branded soft drinks appeared with the frequencies with which other kinds of branded and nonbranded beverages appeared in these movies, including alcohol. Second, we examined the extent to which branded soft drinks were shown being consumed, relative to other drinks, with endorsement conceived of as a product endorsement. Third, we sought to understand better the manner in which these soft drinks were portrayed by comparing their duration on the screen with the length of presentation of other beverage types; by examining whether they were more likely to appear in movies made for younger audiences (P and PG rated movies); and by examining their use as props as a function of the era in which the film was situated. Fourth, we examined the extent to which portrayals of soft drinks in these movies had global reach, using international box office revenues as a proxy for international exposure
