Companies use influencers to advertise junk food, denounce NGO

Laura Poy Solano

Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday February 12, 2023, p. 8

Without regulatory control, the food industry scrap found a new space on the Internet to promote their products. With the support of influencers they reach children and adolescents with misleading advertisingwarns an investigation carried out by civil groups.

The report #ScrapInfluencer, Tec-Check, an organization in favor of online consumer rights, and El Poder del Consumidor, reveals that “many of the contents of the influencersdisguised as recommendations or experiences of daily life, are misleading advertising, which is not perceived in this way by millions of followers, particularly children and adolescents.

After the approval in the Chamber of Deputies of a reform to the General Health Law that prohibits the use of partially hydrogenated oils, known as trans fats, added to food and non-alcoholic beverages, mostly ultra-processed products, a new field opens for its advertising regulation.

Fiorentina García Miramón, co-founder of the Tec-Check organization, and Alejandro Calvillo, sociologist and director of El Poder del Consumidor, pointed out that brands, advertising agencies and influencers they do what they want on social media at the expense of consumer rightsparticularly from the children’s public.

In the presentation of the report, Clara Luz Álvarez, an expert in audience rights, highlighted that the current regulatory framework clearly states that advertising cannot be misleading, regardless of the way in which the message is transmitted.

“When a influencers He talks about a product as if it were his genuine opinion or recommendation, but it is not, since there is a payment in money or kind, we are facing a hoax”, he emphasized.

Fiorella Espinosa, Nutrition Officer of the United Nations Children’s Fund Mexico, warned that recent studies indicate that in Mexico 90 percent of the foods that are advertised in electronic media and the Internet are unhealthy, and their main objective is children.

Regarding the contents of the influencersCalvillo said, we are facing predatory advertising, because the universal principle of authenticity in advertising is not respected.

Any person, he explained, when faced with a promotional act, must be clear that it is advertising, and it is the responsibility of the issuer that this is so. If we also consider that its contents reach millions of children and adolescents, we can see a huge impact.