Audience

Food Packaging and Marketing To Children This lesson helps students to deconstruct the packaging of favourite foods using the Media Triangle as a framework for questioning and understanding the message.

What the Teacher Does

Before

What the Students Do

Apply Invite students to think about their favourite foods and how they are packaged. • You are in charge of your family’s

grocery shopping list. You are allowed to add anything you want. So, what are some of the things you will add to your list?

• Uh, oh! You’ve caught a cold and can’t do the shopping. Someone else has to pick up those important items. Describe the packaging of your items to your group (or partner).

Review the essential elements of food packaging (image, logo, symbols, slogan): • Invite groups/partners to list the

common characteristics of food packaging

• Create a class anchor chart of things we expect to see in food packaging

During Show students a box of cereal. Read the box by modeling a think-aloud of the responses to the Guiding Questions (see side-bar). Refer to the anchor chart to measure the box against the students’ criteria. N.B. Refer to the next page for sample prompts to guide your “think aloud”. After Allow students to work together in pairs to choose another food product to deconstruct using the text and audience sides of the Media Triangle.

Follow-up: • If you were marketing (or selling) this

product, how might you improve the packaging?

• Have students reflect on their learning, by describing the strategies they used to read their poster.

• Students brainstorm their favourite

foods and describe the packaging of these foods to group members or partners.

• Students share their responses to

discussion prompts and share in the process of creating a class anchor chart (e.g. Common Marketing Techniques).

• Students use the guiding questions to

examine the multiple messages from their chosen product

• In small groups, students share their ideas

• Students reflect on their learning by

writing in their media logs their responses to some of the questions in the side-bar.

Media Triangle Guiding Questions:

• What is it? • How is it like other

things you know? • Can you name three

things like it? • What colours and

shapes are on it? • Does the image on the

packaging remind you of anything?

• What logos do you see? Who makes money from this?

• What values or points of view are promoted? or omitted?

• Does it contain stereotypes?

• Who is the target audience? How do you know?

• What techniques has the creator used to grab the attention of the target audience?

Questions for further discussion:

• Are the messages in the packaging primarily visual, textual or both?

• Who do you think is the intended audience for the packaging?

• Where should this packaging be displayed for maximum exposure?

• How does the packaging of a brand name product compare to that of a generic brand? Why is this so?

• How would I improve this packaging?

• If you were creating the packaging for my favourite food, what might you do?

Text

Production

© Ken Pettigrew, TDSB 2007

Reading Food Packaging

The Z-pattern: Readers typically scan a page of text by zig-zagging their eyes across the page from left to right until they reach the bottom of the page. I can see here that the text designers placed some important elements along the invisible lines tracing the Z. My eye starts with the General Mills logo and crosses the page downwards with the brand name and heart-healthy information. My eyes scan the bottom text, resting on the image of the cereal and the descriptive text.

The colours here are rich. The brown and golden colours aren’t used to attract children. The heavy use of text and “healthy-choice” logo-ing implies that adults are the target audience.

This logo is designed to help people make healthy choices. People looking to make healthy choices would like this.

I see that this box has some advertising that is separate from the actual product. I suppose that NASCAR is sponsoring this product. I bet that this benefits both groups. This is the Bill Lester box. I wonder if there is a series of boxes with different drivers.

The bee has a stethoscope and is listening to the heart. I think that the heart implies “heart healthy”. The text in the heart tells how this cereal helps reduce cholesterol and the risk of hear disease. It uses some loaded words: “CAN HELP”, “A PART OF”…Hmm?

There are a lot of images on this page. I see the cereal has been constructed to look very appetizing. The milk is splattering and the cereal is larger that it is in the box. This is to make it look very appealing.

How could I create a similar message on a poster that is inclusive?

© Ken Pettigrew, TDSB 2007