پیام های ناخواسته در تبلیغات آنلاین به جوانان: شبیه سازی غیر قانونی مواد مخدر در یک کمپین بازاریابی ورزشی کانادا Unintended Messages in Online Advertising to Youth: Illicit Drug Imagery in a Canadian Sports Marketing Campaign

Advertising on the Internet is a large industry. Corporations use the Internet to market their services and products to a wide range of people, including children and youth. Young people in particular spend more time online than adults [1], easily adopt Internet-based technology, and may be more vulnerable to online advertising [2]. This has contributed to research on the role of the Internet in promoting tobacco [2], alcohol [3,4], and food consumption [5]. Although the extent of influence that Internet advertising has on children remains to be determined, it is well established that advertising through traditional media has a large impact on the behaviors of children and youth [5e8]. There is every reason to suspect that the Internet has a similar effect. Very little research has focused on inadvertent effects of online marketing to youth. Corporate advertisements are developed to sell a product or service, typically with little effort to assess adverse consequences of the messages being conveyed [9]. Large companies have extensive budgets to develop marketing campaigns that reach their target population, often with little regard for health impacts on the consumer. Furthermore, laws to regulate marketing are poorly adapted to the Internet’s growing role in marketing to children [2]. These factors together create conditions that can facilitate harmful advertising to children online, even by companies that market safe or desirable products. The objective of this study was to illustrate the potential for unexpected negative effects of online advertising to young people, using the example of a large sports corporation that marketed hockey products to children and youth on the Web in Canada from 2003 to 2004. We analyze secondary data from a previous randomized trial that assessed how youth perceived the campaign [10]. Methods Study design We invited two high schools located in metropolitan Montreal, Canada, to participate in a cluster randomized trial. The trial tested advertisements used by the Nike multinational sports corporation in an online hockey marketing campaign called “Light It Up” targeting children and youth in Canada in 2003e2004 [11,12]. The company recruited children and youth at skating rinks, where they provided passwords to the Web site, and invited participants to an online contest that involved viewing “Light It Up” advertisements from home. The campaign elicited concern from public health authorities because of the ambiguous messages and smoke-like appearance of the online advertisements that may inadvertently have promoted smoking [10]. A cluster randomized control trial was therefore designed to determine whether children and youth perceived smoking messages in “Light It Up” advertisements [10]. Data on students’ perceptions were collected using open-ended questions that made no mention of tobacco, and results showed that students did indeed perceive smoking messages in a “Light It Up” advertisement compared with a neutral version of the same advertisement containing fewer tobacco-related messages [10]. Post hoc, it appeared that students perceived the advertisements also contained illicit drugmessages, an unexpected finding that is the object of the present article. In the original trial, we randomly allocated 20 classes containing 397 students from grades 7 to 11 to view an exposure advertisement or a neutral comparison advertisement. We downloaded the exposure advertisement from the company’s Web site. We selected a typical “Light It Up” advertisement featuring a hockey net, available for youth to download to their computer as wallpaper (Figure 1). To create a neutral comparison advertisement, we changed the “Light It Up” slogan to “Go For It” and digitallymodified the color content to attenuate the potentially smoky appearance. The brand name was removed from both the exposure and comparison advertisements. Students responded to an in-class paperand-pencil questionnaire containing open-ended questions on their perception of the content, appearance, and messages in the advertisements. The detailed study questionnaire is available elsewhere [10]. Additional examples of “Light It Up” advertisements (not evaluated in our study) are available online [11,12] and from the authors on request. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Montreal Hospital Centre. Students and parents provided signed voluntary consent.