Outdoor Advertising for Foods and Beverages: What's Being Advertised and to Whom?

Introduction: Paid advertising is widely used to entice consumers to purchase foods and beverages. This study examined billboards and ads on walls and street furniture in communities around the U.S.

Methods: Trained field coders conducted direct observations of streetscapes in national samples of communities in 2011 and 2012. Street segments were randomly selected in each community with probability proportional to population size and supplemented with convenience samples of commercial streets. Food and beverage-related ads visible from each segment were coded for 16 content areas.

Results: Staff observed 27,005 street segments across 317 communities. Overall ad prevalence was low. Ads for non-alcoholic beverages were visible from 215 segments, 106 (49%) of which had ads for regular (i.e., non-diet) soda or fountain drinks. Quick-service restaurant ads were observed from 376 segments. Relatively few segments had ads promoting retail food outlets (e.g., supermarkets, convenience stores, (n=48) or healthy eating messages (n=42). In preliminary analyses, exposure to soda ads did not vary by community characteristics. However, communities in the lowest tertile of median household income had greater exposure to quick-service restaurant ads compared to the highest, controlling for urbanization (adjusted odds ratio=2.61, 95% CI 1.08, 6.31). Quick-service restaurant ads were also more likely to be found in urban than rural settings but did not vary by race/ethnicity when controlling for other factors in preliminary analyses.

Discussion: Ads for energy-dense foods and beverages make up a substantial portion of outdoor food and beverage advertising. Lower income communities may be targeted by quick-service restaurants’ outdoor advertising.