Eat your chips, or you’ll never get big and fat when you grow up!

Unlike the UK, which has pretty strict guidelines on advertising junk food to kids, If you ever wondered why so many young Americans are spotty, overweight, and just generally a pain in the arse... Listen up... We are to blame. And no, I'm not talking about us as parents (well, maybe to a certain extent) I'm talking about the "Us" in the ad biz. Did you know that here in the US, food companies spent nearly two billion dollars to market products to children and teens in 2007. Of which nearly half was targeted to children under 12.

Makers of fizzy drinks spent the most on marketing to children and teenagers, followed by fast-food restaurants and producers of breakfast cereals. And the major advertising platform was television. Tons of television, particularly in the cartoon shows aimed at the really young.

McDonalds gives high schools report card holders that offer free burgers and chips to kids who get good grades. And the corridors of virtually every high school are lined with vending machines for everything from Coke to pork rinds.

As I write in the chapter devoted to advertising to kids in my last book, The Ubiquitous Persuaders, two years ago, the junk food makers agreed to regulate themselves, which is like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

Since it was was formed in 2006 to fend off government regulation, the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative run by the Council of Better Business Bureaus, has done virtually bugger all, in spite of its pledge either to stop aiming ads at children or to promote only what the council calls “better-for-you products” in ads directed at children.

Still, what can you expect from a country that once claimed (when Reagan was President) that ketchup was one of the essential foods groups necessary in a school lunch, and where in some states nearly half the population is obese… Not overweight… Obese. Although I hear it’s happening over there as well. Bloody advertising!

The social networking circle-jerk!

Readers of my US blog, AdScam, where informed yesterday that I have given up on Twitter. Why? Because in the last few days, I have had dozens of emails from very pissed off people asking why I am bombarding them with shitty emails flogging everything from insurance to condoms. Obviously someone has hacked my account. Just as someone phished my Facebook account FIVE times a few weeks ago. That’s whey I am no longer on Facebook.

Ah, you might say, but there are steps you can take, like changing your password and blocking certain url’s and IP addresses… But why the f**k should I? It's too much like hard work for little return. As someone commenting on AdScam puts it so well…

I completely understand George, if you really look at it.. this is what happens. To all of us. 1 - you get pushed to blog 2 - you get pushed to twitter 3 - you get pushed to Facebook 4 - you get pushed to LinkedIn 5 - you get pushed to digg 6 - you get pushed to YouTube 7 - you get pushed back to your blog. At the end of the day you run around to 2000 social media sites and what did you accomplish... you talked to the same people you would if you only stuck to your blog. because like all of us, we all are cycling to each of them... I read your blog.. then check my twitter feed and see snippets of what I just read. You know... the more I think about it.. the more I think George might be right.. it's a massive circle jerk.

I think you will see an increasing number of people beginning to question the time we are spending churning out so much useless crap. We are not all Steven Fry's. So from now on if you want to read my pearls of wisdom, you’ll have to settle for AdScam, MadScam and psfk.