Exploration of the research literature

In recent years, there has been a growing concern that children¿s poor nutrition intake may be, at least partly, caused by the increasing online food advertising aimed at children. Associating a brand with positive emotions is the key element of the advertising strategies and the branding used online. Marketers target children at a young age, to create product recognition and lifelong consumers. Children recognise brands as early as 18 months old and can identify characters, colours, and symbols by age 2. By the age of 3 they can already begin to evaluate products. Children prefer branded food over unmarked food as early as 3 years of age and tend to view advertisements as fun and entertainment. The purpose of this work was to gain further knowledge on this particular area of food advertising and, by synthetizing the existing literature, to bring present data together and to add the body of literature.