This is another in a series of posts based on a recent f.a.c.t.s. (“food advertising to children and teens score”) report on sugary sodas issued by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale. A while ago, the center did a similar report on the advertising of junk food to children, and you can read my excerpts from that here.

The fractures of mass media have forced marketers to develop new ways of reaching their targets, and the sugary beverage industry is a particularly relentless hunter. One older example is Coke's purchase of space at the judges' table on American Idol for its logo-ed cups, but the Rudd Center report adds plenty more:

* MyCokeRewards.com was the most-visited sugary drink company website with 170,000 unique youth visitors per month (42,000 of whom were children and 129,000 were teens); Capri Sun's website was the second-most viewed site, attracting 35,000 children and 35,000 teens per month.
* Twenty-one sugary drink brands had YouTube channels in 2010 with more than 229 million views by June 2011, including 158 million views for the Red Bull channel alone.
* Coca-Cola was the most popular of all brands on Facebook, with more than 30 million fans; Red Bull and Monster ranked 5th and 15th, with more than 20 million and 11 million fans, respectively.
* Two-thirds of the brands analyzed in the report appeared during prime-time TV programming, totaling nearly 2,000 appearances in 2010.
* Coca-Cola Classic accounted for three-quarters of brand appearances seen by children and teens.
* Sixty-three percent of all full-calorie soda and energy drink ads on national TV included sponsorship of an athlete, sports league or team, or an event or cause.

Among other implications that arise from this data:

* Such efforts must work or the companies wouldn't spend the millions that are involved.
* They have to, as in, they wouldn't spend such sums if people would buy what they're peddling on their own.