LET’S ASK MARION: IS IT CHEESY FOR DORITOS TO SPONSOR COLBERT?

(With a click of her mouse, EatingLiberally’s kat corners Dr. Marion Nestle, NYU professor of nutrition and author of Food Politics and What to Eat:)

Kat: You and I spend a lot of time documenting—and decrying—the undue influence of Big Food on our democracy. Politicians and potato chip pushers have been in bed for ages, leaving us with crumby agricultural policies and a food pyramid that’s pointless. Your own efforts to persuade the USDA to include those two little words, “eat less,” were vehemently vetoed by the “Crunch all you want, we’ll make more” contingent.

Frito-Lay’s foothold stretches from DC to Delhi, as you discovered on your recent trip to India, where Frito-Lay chips can now be found in even the most remote, rural outskirts. And let’s not forget that Frito-Lay’s parent company, PepsiCo, has become China's largest private potato grower in its bold bid to be the world's snack food superpower.

And now Doritos has insinuated its crunchy, salty, cheesy agenda snack-in-the-middle of the battle for our nation’s highest office by sponsoring Stephen Colbert’s presidential candidacy.

We know Hillary’s been hobnobbing with Monsanto lobbyists, and Obama’s said to be chummy with Illinois-based agribiz giant ADM, but we’ve come to expect better from our fake pundits than our politicians. Does having Doritos as a sponsor compromise Stephen Colbert’s integrity?

Dr. Nestle: Doritos in the context of Colbert running for President sounds like a typical Colbert oxymoron, but never mind. Let’s take this at face value. For starters, Doritos aren’t the worst junk food in the world (they meet my “no more than five ingredients” criterion for processed foods) but have lots of calories relative to their nutrient values. Hence: junk food.

PepsiCo has much to gain from this alliance. Either PepsiCo is giving up on Doritos or looking for unconventional ways to promote them, as the company has pulled back on the usual ways of advertising them. PepsiCo spent $29,763,000 on media advertising for Doritos in 2005 but a mere $12,856,000 in 2006 (source: Advertising Age). That leaves about $17 million for other ways of marketing Doritos. Hence: the Colbert campaign.

At that price, or even a lot less, no politician—even one from Comedy Central--is likely to say anything critical about Doritos, let alone any other PepsiCo product. You can bet that Colbert’s platform could not possibly be strong on public health. With Doritos sponsorship, Colbert won’t be saying anything critical about the role of junk food in childhood obesity; the marketing of salty snacks and sugary soft drinks in low income areas in the United States or anywhere else; billions of dollars spent on federal subsidies of corn and high fructose corn syrup; or the favorable water rights granted to soft drink companies. If he did get into such issues in any meaningful way, it would be bye-bye Doritos.

Whether or not the sponsorship is meant satirically, Colbert has already given PepsiCo more free advertising for Doritos than the company could ever buy any other way. The principal beneficiary of this kind of sponsorship is always the sponsor, even when it’s meant as a joke. I’d say PepsiCo owes Colbert, big time.