Beverage marketing in retail outlets and The Balance Calories Initiative.

ABSTRACT

We quantified the placement and promotion of beverages in groceries, supermarket and convenience stores in the communities targeted by The Balance Calories Initiative, a campaign launched by the top three American beverage companies to help Americans reduce consumption of sugar from beverages by 20% by 2025. The companies promised to drive interest in low- and no-calorie beverages through promotional efforts such as product placement, featured merchandising, couponing and other incentives, with more intensive efforts in low-income communities in communities in Alabama, Mississippi, and Southern California. We also measured two comparison communities not specifically targeted by The Balance Calories Initiative, observing 69 retail outlets in 5 localities in 2016-2017. We found that sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) were the most common beverage in all outlets, and the brands of the companies pledging changes in marketing strategies the most dominant. SSBs were placed in an average of 25 separate locations in groceries vs. 15 for low/no-calorie beverages and 11 for water. No differences were noted between East LA stores observed 2 years after the initiative vs. stores in the North Mississippi Delta, Montgomery or the comparison stores. Given prior evidence that exposure to point-of-sale displays influences purchases, reducing the number and location of displays of SSBs should be considered to reduce SSB consumption.