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Fatty Foods and Reality TV Get the World's Parents Angriest about Kid Marketing

Marketing of mobile phones to children comes third overall in global poll of products parents don't want promoted to children

Seattle - May 10, 2005 - A new global opinion poll reveals that marketing to children has become a global issue for parents. The latest GMI Poll surveyed 5,680 parents in 13 countries in April 2005 and found that 75 percent of all parents believe fatty and junk foods should not be marketed to children.

Parents in some countries registered an even higher opposition to junk food marketing. For example, 93 percent of UK parents don't want these products marketed to their children. This compares with 73 percent of US parents and 61 percent of Russians.

The strength of UK parental opinion against fatty food products revealed by this GMI Poll comes as the prevalence of obesity among British children aged 2 to 10 has increased from 9.9% to 13.7% between 1995 and 2003 (source: UK Department of Health).

Reality TV programmes are second on this global ranking of parental attitudes against marketing to children. Almost half of all parents surveyed don't believe programmes like Big Brother and The Farm should be promoted to children.

The UK bucks the global trend, however. Although UK parents are strongly against junk food advertising, they dislike marketing of cosmetics (58 percent) and mobile phones (56 percent) to children ahead of marketing reality TV shows (49 percent).

About GMI Poll

GMI Poll quickly and accurately gathers international opinions about topical issues and critical global events, with real-time results available in as little as 24 hours. GMI Poll is the only survey that polls global opinions in real time, online, and with statistically accurate results.

About GMI

GMI (Global Market Insite, Inc.) is the only company that provides comprehensive integrated solutions for global market intelligence for both market research firms and corporate market research departments at Global 2000 companies. Solutions include Net-MR®, a suite of software tools to manage and automate research throughout the project lifecycle, desktop analysis tools, 24x7x365 service bureau capabilities, and one of the world’s largest, highly profiled, double opt-in managed panels, spanning across 200 countries. In addition, GMI offers high-value, real-time enterprise feedback solutions for customer, partner and employee programs. Founded in 1999 with world headquartersin Seattle, Wash., GMI has operations on five continents.