2025: In-School Marketing and The Future of Fast Food Consumption

Elementary students are exposed to an unprecedented level of marketing messages for fast food brands today, more than any other demographic in American history. According to researchers at Arizona State University, between 26.5 million and 30.3 million public school students in the United States are exposed to in-school marketing by fast food marketers, with over 43% of schools participating in fundraising programs run by companies that market fast food and shelf stable snacks, and 30% of all schools serving brand-name fast food items for lunch. How will this increased exposure to fast food marketing, especially at the elementary level, affect this emerging demographic? Children and adolescents are already displaying purchase behaviors associated with a heightened level of brand awareness, a result of modern family dynamics, economically-conscious school lunch programs across the United States, and an increase in media penetration over the past decade. This impressionable demographic is growing up with a finely tuned palette and emotional association for branded fast food items and shelf stable snacks. As their purchasing power increases with age, these brands are on track to become the legacy brands of the future, dominating market share by 2025 and developing complications for quick serve industry marketers not participating in these programs.

In 1946, the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) launched in the United States with the intention of providing low cost balanced meals to students through subsidies to schools. Under the program, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) awards public schools cash reimbursements for each meal served. With the reimbursements, schools are expected to cover all costs associated with the cafeteria, including staffing, lunch trays, and condiments, even utilities. During the current economic recession, public school lunch programs that were already struggling, have been hit even harder. In challenging financial times, schools saw the benefit of increasing lunch menu purchases among the student body, encouraging more students to buy lunch by incorporating brand name items into their menu offerings.

This trend has expanded across the United States with great success, highlighting the purchasing power of this younger, more brand-conscious demographic and paving the way for an increase of in-school food marketing. According to a School Nutritional Association survey, over 80% of the schools in the United States cook fewer than half of their entrées and nearly 40% of schools now are cooking fewer than 25% of all entrees served. School lunchrooms have invited fast food franchises including Chick-Fil-A, Dominos, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Panda Express, among others, seizing opportunities to support their school nutrition programs with revenue driven directly from the primary decision maker---the students.

Where did this fast food, brand-conscious generation come from? Shifting socio-economic movements have altered the dynamic of the modern family, creating new consumption habits. Families are more mobile and display increasingly individualistic eating habits as children are snacking more often and eating more away from home. As a response, consumers seek convenience and value in products that they purchase and the food they choose to consume. Children are also watching more TV than they did ten years ago and engaging in technology at a dramatically younger age. A 2005 study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a leading advocacy group on nutrition and health, found that nine out of ten commercials on Saturday morning television were for fast food, sugary cereals and other low-nutrient foods.

How much purchasing power do children display today? According to a Kid’s Health survey, nine to 13 year olds are getting what they want for dinner with 58% of the decision currently owned by the child, 31% from the mother and 6% from father. According to a study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, there has been a steady increase in toddler marketing, and the first request for a branded product now comes at 24 months of age with preschool students making more requests for branded food items than any other age group. This study highlights the success of pre-k food marketing and a shift in how often parents enable their children to make purchase decisions at unprecedented and impressionable ages. According to the same report, children younger than eight, understand marketing messages as entertaining and while 8-10 year olds do possess the cognitive abilities to process marketing messages, many do not understand association. As a child’s thinking develops into adolescence, they respond to emotive messages and continue to exhibit highly receptive attitudes towards marketing.

In-school marketing can also take the blame for early brand recognition. As schools across the country face serious economic issues, they establish contracts to sell branded products in school, they develop learning programs around fast food incentives, they sell ad space in school buses, on sports uniforms, yearbooks, etc. This new generation is likely to carry to 2025 an uncanny affinity for products such as Doritos, a staple snack in most families and schools; the snap of the bag, the smell and experience of fresh, crisp corn nacho chips.

Experts have long reinforced the importance of establishing proper nutritional values during childhood, citing that many consumption behaviors started during childhood will continue to affect food choices throughout a lifetime. Children are consuming record numbers of calories found in processed sugars and fat having led to a widespread obesity epidemic plaguing our American youth. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, one in three children in our country are overweight; a figure that is three times higher than it was in 1980. Earlier this year, First Lady Michelle Obama announced a campaign to end the childhood obesity epidemic. “Let’s Move” will focus on educating parents about nutrition and exercise and work to improve the quality of food in schools. The Obama Administration also has hopes to pass the Child Nutrition Act this year, which would award school lunch programs an extra $1 billion over the next decade for improving the quality of lunch food.

Even with these efforts to improve childhood consumption habits, the brand awareness already seems to be instilled in American children. What’s the significance of this current trend for the future? These fast food brands are reaching children earlier, establishing the foundation to retain association on cultural, social, ritual and emotional levels. By establishing a shared history with this age group, these fast food brands are, in effect, asking these students to embrace a lifetime of brand loyalty and trust. Departing from brand loyalty as “it’s a brand my mom trusted”, these new legacy brands will have found an absolute penetration point for developing the ultimate co-creator.

Traditionally, legacy brands are those brands that have weathered the test of time, have stayed true to their authentic benefits and featured inherited brand trust through generations. However, with the socio-cultural trends moving away from family dinners, food brands that aspire for legacy status are those that these students encounter through pre-school, the daily school snack, soccer games, subsidized school lunches and high school. These fast food brands are developing recognition, trust and are ultimately the foods this demographic finds comfort in, fashioning their sense of category flavor, sounds, action and experience.

In 2025, 18-25 year olds will be emotionally relying on fast food brands like Dominos and Pizza Hut, who are already reaping the benefits from early brand recognition exhibited in this age group today. This new sense of loyalty will challenge new product development, flavor innovation, category differentiation, nutrition and food education. The 18-25 age group will be internalizing statements such as “new and improved” more intuitively, with highly attuned emotional intelligence that will recognize, revolt or rejoice more vocally. Portfolio innovation will include tactics like vintage sauces recipes, as a way to retain the market and welcome new users. Emerging brands will battle to find security at the point of penetration and hope to last through the maturation period.

About the author:
As Vice President, Client Services of MARSH, Zesha Skop is focused on strategic design development and leading creative branding services for clients in the Retail/Merchandising Sector such as Carl’s Jr, Hardee’s, Skyline Chili and Sherwin Williams. Ms. Skop also leads corporate initiatives in the area of client strategy, branding, culture and innovation.