Food Marketing

The practice of food marketing only really took off in the late 19th century. Until then it had been limited to luxury items and was not really an entity of its own. It all changed when a number of inventions had led to that standardized food could be transported much easier more cost effective.

The Beginning
The early steps of marketing was simple banners and newspaper ads, the so called "slogans" is an early invention. The radio was also used for selling products. The practice grew and developed, new methods were applied. Cinema and television were two new medias that started to get exploited. Experimentation led to new advances and pretty soon it many times became a lot more important than the product on its own.

Modern Food Advertising
The modern food advertising has become a huge industry and a science by its own right. Psychologists are hired to design product packaging and ads. Consumer behaviour is analised through use of polls and statistics. Today product placement in movies is a vital and generates huge profits for the movie. After Michael Jackson signed a huge contract with Pepsi in 1984, sales rocketed.

Morality
Some methods have been quite criticized. in the 1970´s Nestle had campaigns that incentivated mothers to stop breast feeding and use their products instead. This was quite successful in many poorer countries. The result was many infant deaths and diseases, nothing can replace mother´s milk! This lead to boycotting of Nestle´s products. In general you can see a tendency to how advertizing has led to that unhealthy products have replaced healthier. Example: The yearly per capita consumption of softdrinks in Sweden was 1980 29.6 liter, in 2006 it was 89.7. A direct result of this is that we get fatter and more obese and get the health problems that follow.