Big Data and the transformation of food and beverage marketing: undermining efforts to reduce obesity?

Abstract

The confluence of new ways to quickly gather, analyze, and use large volumes of information – so-called ‘Big Data’ – coupled with the widespread adoption of digital devices, has transformed marketing, including food marketing. However, the effects on health of the marriage between Big Data and digital food marketing are largely un-researched and unknown. In the midst of ongoing global concern about obesity, there is a need for public health scholars to be informed of the nature and extent of Big Data’s impact on marketing in order to create new research agendas, methods, and evidence-based approaches that will be effective in today’s highly dynamic digital marketplace. In this paper, we identify six key features of this new Big Data food marketing system, explore how they depart from traditional forms of advertising, marketing, and retail operations, and offer suggestions for research strategies and public health interventions. While there is some evidence to suggest that data analytics and digital technologies could be harnessed to help address obesity and chronic disease, we argue that without intervention current trends will continue, and these techniques will be used primarily to promote junk food, sugar-sweetened beverages, and other unhealthy products, thus increasing health disparities, and worsening health outcomes.

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