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Kristina Nguyen
December 2, 2014
UWRT-1102-020
Professor Voltz

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Proposal First Draft Essay

Health branding and marketing is a very widely seen occurrence today. Everyone has to
eat and businesses want to market on that. This topic is important to me because it impacts our
society lifespan-wise and will inform us on ways to avoid damaging our health. I recently
learned in my Sociology class that the life span of the average American has decreased, which is
a first in history. With new advances each day, we should being getting closer to living forever
yet we struggle because of the lack of knowledge most Americans have on nutrition and the way
businesses market towards us. Since this topic can be very broad, I will most likely have to
narrow my research to discussing the marketing and branding effects on a specific demographic.
I could possibly write about marketing towards diabetics, vegans, or something as simple as
children. Sticking to the simple, I plan to write about child oriented advertising techniques. The
research conducted will be directed in answering how marketing techniques used in promoting
childrens foods can be very misleading and potentially harmful. This is be further expand to
describe the harm done nutritionally and psychologically.
Being a Pre-Nursing major, I know a little about health and nutrition on a molecular
bases; but, I thought it would be interesting to research the business aspect of health branding especially since I once considered being a Business major. Instead of discussing nutrition on a

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molecular level, I will write about the misleading information provided about it. I know that
writing on a molecular level would be too far out of my span of knowledge and would conflict
with the marketing aspect of the topic.
I remember once considering to write about this topic before for my high school
graduation project but backing out. What sparked my interest again was the propaganda unit in
my UWRT course at UNC Charlotte and an orientation where I had the chance to sit in on a
course. What I need to learn to complete this essay that I dont know yet is some marketing
strategies used to advertise foods, the effects marketing tacts have on people, and the jargon used
to brand food products. Specific questions I would want to answer in my research would include:
(1) What is the difference between branding and advertising?; (2) What subconscious messages
could advertisements portray?; (3) Who regulates food labeling or promotion?; (4) What
regulations are there on nutritional labels?; (5) How effective are nutritional labels on informing
the consumer?; (6) Why has the federal government not put more restrictions on
advertisements?; (7) If there are restrictions on internet advertisements, how are they enforced?;
(8) What are the psychological impacts on advertising to children?; (9) How much of our
advertisements are food oriented?; and (10) When were advertisement restrictions first enforced?
Some possible sources I could use to answer these questions would include the UNC Charlotte
database, nutritional label reports or journals, psychology articles on advertising, or business
marketing schools/students.
It will be hard when trying to find a target audience if I conduct my research on childrens
products; children younger than 13 would not be likely to read about nutrition unless forced to
and will more than likely not read mine research. I could easily target parents since they have a

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big influence on their childs access to certain advertising devices (such as television) and tend to
control their childrens diets. They will be interested in the possible harms television ads and
product sponsor websites would have on their child both psychologically and nutritionally. They
will want to know what to look out for when grocery shopping. Parents of younger children are
my best bet as a target audience. As for the adolescent audiences, there is a chance they will be
interested in my work but not as much as parents. Some of the information will be helpful for
older people concerned with their health too since many advertising techniques crossover with
different targeting audiences.
In the end, this essay will be a informative essay rather than an argumentative essay since
I can understand the reasoning for the marketing tactics in the eyes of a businessman. I wouldnt
want to argue to ban their techniques seeing as that is how they sell products; but, I feel that
informing others about said techniques is important so that they have a chance to make their own
decisions. People today would then be more aware of what they are viewing or experiencing
when being advertised to and can make healthy decisions.
It will be interesting if my research has room to expand on the long term effects on what
would happen if we were to change our marketing ways. Would the American average lifespan
increase back to its previous growing trend? Will there be a even bigger growth than expected
with sudden drastic changes or will it worsen because of the quick pace? Will other countries be
effected by the change in American marketing too? It would be very interesting to look back on
this research paper if the regulations on television advertisements, internet promotions, and
billboards or banners were to change in the near future.