Cartoon heroes and villains

Our research showed that 75% of parents think that it is irresponsible for food companies to put cartoon characters on unhealthy foods, and 74% think that they shouldn’t be allowed to use them in this way.

Siding with the baddies

Our trips to the supermarket showed that cartoon favourites such as Spider-Man, Shrek and The Simpsons are overwhelmingly being used to promote foods which are ‘less healthy’, according to the Food Standards Agency’s definition.

Kids’ favourites

Cartoons on healthy foods such as Winnie the Pooh on bags of Tesco clementines, and ViaCom International’s SpongeBob SquarePants on Volvic Spring Water for example - were very much in the minority.

We wrote to 11 companies which manage the licensing of favourite cartoon characters such as Shrek and Spider-Man. We also wrote to five food companies that use their own cartoon characters. We asked them whether they had specific policies on how their characters can be used to promote foods to children. Some didn’t reply.

We did find some positive developments. The BBC, Co-op, Disney and Warner Brothers have all introduced responsible policies restricting these types of promotions. Others such as Kellogg's and McDonald's have made some steps in the right direction but their policies are more limited in scope.

But overall, most companies that use, own and license the cartoons used on foods high in fat, sugar and salt are still failing to acknowledge the need for effective action.

For detail on the company policies, see our full report below.

Cartoons out of control

The Committee of Advertising Practice has developed an industry-wide code covering some areas of food marketing, such as magazine adverts, emails, posters, cinema and video adverts.

The code says that marketing shouldn’t condone or encourage poor nutritional habits or an unhealthy lifestyle in children. However, in practice older children will still be exposed to unhealthy food promotions and branded characters created by food companies such as the Nesquik Bunny and Coco the Monkey will not be covered at all.

There are no controls in place to cover food packaging or company websites.

Take action now

Share your heroes and villains - send us photos of food promotions you've seen for our marketing wall of shame. Or see our action section for more ideas about how to challenge irresponsible marketing of food to children.