Various factors, including cultural, organizational, and economic factors, influence marketers' ethical decisions. Breakfast cereal companies spend significantly on marketing to attract and maintain market share. The ethical crisis created in the case of marketing sugary cereals to children, especially those in third-world nations, is that marketers exploit young children’s gullibility and love for memorable characters. Marketing unhealthy foods, such as sugary cereals, to children, influences their feeding choices. Children are more likely to select low-nutrient foods when packages are popular cartoon characters and sports celebrities (Cheyne et al., 2013). Consequently, poor diet quality contributes to chronic diseases.
The situation was resolved through self-regulation. Regulations such as the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) seek to motivate children to take healthier foods through a factsheet that states nutrition criteria of various food categories (Swan & Lange, 2015) . Moreover, the South African Minister of Health prohibited marketing to children while the Department of Health ( DoH) seeks to minimize the effect of advertising unhealthy foods and drinks to children.
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The outcome of this resolution is that it minimized the promotion of unhealthy foods to young ones using cartoon characters, actors below 18 years, animations, and appealing collectables. For instance, it banned the use of cartoon characters and smiling families on breakfast cereals and potato chips packaging (Swan & Lange, 2015) . This aspect reduced the likelihood of children developing non-communicable diseases, such as childhood obesity.
The use of plain packaging could have prevented this ethical violation. The packing design violated regulations governing the labeling and promotion of foods. The presence of cartoon characters on the packaging results in an ethical violation. Children and parents tend to identify with the welcoming characters, implying that such packaging is likely to influence their feeding styles. Moreover, the use of upbeat families on the wrappers seems to portray a healthy theme instead of communicating the actual nutritional information of the cereals.
References
Cheyne, A., Dorfman, L., Bukofzer, E., & Harris, J. (2013). Marketing Sugary Cereals to Children in the Digital Age: A Content Analysis of 17 Child-Targeted Websites. Journal of Health Communication , 1-20.
Swan, C., & Lange, R. (2015). Ethics and packaging design: Marketing of sugary breakfast cereals to South African children. 7th Interiornational DEFSA Conference Proceedings , 276-286. Design Education Forum of Southern Africa.
