“Good advertising does more than just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and beliefs.” – William Bernbach Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayAdvertising for fast food products tends to exceed customer expectations. When an advertisement is displayed, the fast food product is marketed in a way that influences the consumer in terms of the physical appearance of the product. It tends to have some appearance in advertising but by the time the product is purchased, the result is not as attractive as expected. There is an endless number of articles and literature addressing the effects of fast food marketing methods on consumers' willingness to buy. All articles point out that the increase in fast food sales is caused by effective marketing methods, and increased exposure to these marketing methods increases the likelihood of that person purchasing fast food. In 2007, an experiment was carried out in the United States to find out what effect fast food branding has on children's preferences. They tested 63 children by exposing them to two food samples, claiming one food was McDonald's and the other unbranded when in fact both foods were McDonald's. From this experiment it was noted that 48% preferred McDonalds, 37% preferred the “unbranded” burger and 15% said they were the same. 48% of children chose McDonald's despite being the same because their minds have been trained to associate McDonald's with a specific image that makes them believe it is the better option. In the experiment, it was also found that children who had more access to television were more likely to choose McDonald's. This shows that the more a child is exposed to marketing and branding, the more their preferences change in favor of the specific fast food. This is relevant to my topic because this ORT is about testing the influence that fast food marketing methods have on consumer preferences and their willingness to purchase. This article is reliable because the experiment performed was eliminated from factors that could cause bias in children and had many control variables to help represent valuable information that could be compared. The article "How Fast Food TV Marketing to Children Compares to Adult Advertising" is a comparison of different marketing methods used between adults and children. It is natural for a child to have different perspectives than adults and things different ones entertain him. The article highlights that children's advertising mainly revolves around children's meals, complementary toys and movie relationships, while adult advertising focuses on important aspects such as appearance, portion sizes of the meal and the price.It is because of their different perspectives that companies like McDonalds and Burger King use different marketing methods to attract the attention of young children.This relates to my topic because of marketing and the effect it has about people The different marketing methods all target different groups but they all have one main purpose, to attract customers and promote their product. This article helps highlight how each age group has different reactions to different advertisements, but despite the differences in the advertisements, the effects these advertisements have on the person viewing them will be similar despite the age. For children, the toy might attract them and they would torment themparents to buy it for them. As for parents, the price might catch their attention and convince them to buy it. Even though the fast food business releases different advertisements to reach different age groups, everyone gets influenced by the advertisement. Another experiment took place in Australia to determine the effect of food marketing with movie characters and toys impact young children's preferences for healthy and unhealthy foods. Nine hundred and four students from grades 1 and 2 had participated in this experiment. These kids were tested in four different conditions where cinematic constraint rewards (MTIPs) are used in most tests. Children of this age tend to love collecting toys from these different fast food restaurants and it is a mission to complete the collection. Every time they see a promotion using an MTIP, they convince parents to buy them food multiple times because they are determined to complete the collection. Familiar media characters have a strong influence on children. Their vision is blurred when entertainment and marketing collide and children can't tell the difference. They are not aware of persuasive intent and are therefore susceptible to it. In most cases, these MTIPs are associated with unhealthy foods, which is why obesity rates are continually increasing. Instead of manipulating children into buying unhealthy food for toys, it would be ideal to pair MTIPs with healthier foods to promote healthy eating, help reduce obesity rates, and continue to earn money from manipulating young children. This article is extremely related to my topic because movie characters are a marketing method and this method is used to manipulate young children who like to collect toys. This is an example of many different marketing methods used to manipulate customers into buying their products. The “free” toys were used as leverage to attract the specific target market to purchase the product, and it was for this reason that consumers were willing to purchase these products. According to the article, some children said they preferred the healthier option when it was associated with movie characters. This indicates that children are not interested in the actual product, they are only interested in the promotion that accompanies it. This is proof that marketing is a very powerful tool and is very useful in persuading consumers to buy the product, and therefore influences the consumer's willingness to buy it. According to popular wisdom, "eye appeal is half the meal." An experiment was conducted to evaluate what effect vision deprivation has on taste perception, willingness to purchase, intake behavior, and the ability to monitor food intake. The participants were divided into two groups: blindfolded and non-blindfolded. Each participant in both groups was provided with three cups each containing a different ice cream. Both groups were asked a series of questions regarding ice cream. The blindfolded group gave higher scores for the ambiguity of the taste but, at the same time, declared that they were less willing to purchase the product than the non-blindfolded group. Visual deprivation did not affect food intake, but actual food intake was much lower than perceived food intake. Food items are said to have a "visual flavor" and when the blindfolded group was deprived of their sight, the visual flavor was non-existent. When dealing with the marketing mix, the product is one of the factors and the visual properties of a product are very important in representingthe product. This also applies to the fast food sector. The visual properties of fast food initially attract the consumer, and according to this article's secondary research, being able to see the product while eating makes the consumer more willing to purchase the product. If the product is visually appealing and the marketing done around the product is strong, consumers will be more willing to purchase the product. The appearance of the product significantly influences consumers' willingness to purchase. This article is reliable due to the limitations and controlled variable implemented. Factors such as the type of ice cream used were controlled. The researchers tried to reduce the differences in hunger levels by scheduling an appointment with all participants where they would have to refrain from eating for two hours before the experiment. The two groups differed with regards to pre-consumption hunger and external temperature during the experiment, but additional control analyzes were carried out to ensure that these factors did not influence the results obtained from the experiment. Most research literature related to fast food marketing focuses on children, so this article is different and focuses on adults. In 2005 in Australia, a market research company conducted a telephone survey of adults aged 18 and over. They asked questions regarding BMI (body mass index), how much commercial television they watch and approximately how much fast food they consume, etc. This was done to find out what effect advertising exposure has on adults' fast food consumption. From the results it was deduced that participants who were more exposed to commercial television and advertising had a higher consumption of fast food than those who were exposed to less than an hour of television a day. This shows that exposure to excessive marketing affects consumers' consumption and therefore their willingness to purchase. The more a consumer sees an advertisement on television, the more they think about that specific business and product. It turned out that the advertising would be done in such a way that it would attract the consumer more and more every time he viewed it. There are perceptions created by advertising when fast food is marketed and, according to this article, it is these perceptions created by seeing the advertisement repeatedly that cause the consumer to want to consume the product more willingly. The article “Exposure to food advertising on television: associations with children's consumption of fast food and soft drinks and obesity” is very similar to the previous one, except that it focuses on children. This article was a direct investigation into the effects that fast food marketing has on children's consumption of fast food, as well as the increase in obesity in the youth age group. This was a non-experimental investigation. The researchers used previously collected data on children's exposure to food advertising on television as the independent variable and had participants complete a food consumption questionnaire for the dependent variable. According to this article, the average fifth grade student spends the majority of their time watching television and was exposed to 297 fast food commercials in 2002. It was observed that the reason for the high consumption of fast food and soft drinks was due to increased exposure to television. Consumption of soft drinks is completely unaffected by advertising because children drink them even when diet drinks are advertised, and this could be because they like the taste, are loyal customers or have grown up thinking that.