Food and soft drink advertising

In recent years concerns about the nation’s ever expanding waistline have led to some serious naval gazing across society and prompted government and health professionals to attempt to identify and tackle the root causes. Of primary concern is the increase in childhood obesity and the need to protect their health.

The debates about why obesity is on the rise, particularly amongst children, are wide ranging. Is it our increasingly sedentary lifestyles, lack of sport in schools, unhealthy diets or simply a question of more calories in than calories out? As accusatory fingers are pointed so ways of combating the problem are also being explored.

One factor that has had a sizeable chunk of the blame apportioned to it is advertising. Critics object that ads for ‘unhealthy' food are a contributory factor to childhood obesity and subsequently have called for restrictions or even outright bans of advertising for less healthy products.

The ASA is fully aware of these concerns and is committed to ensuring ads do not contain anything that is likely to result in a child’s physical, mental or moral harm. We are not, however, a social engineer, and it is not our role to say whether a legally available product or service is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. We are responsible for making sure that they are advertised within the rules.

But action has been taken to strengthen the rules in this area. In 2007 the ad industry responded to concerns and criticisms by introducing new stricter advertising rules around food and soft drink. The rules apply to under 16s, though they also contain an extra layer of restrictions for children of primary school age and younger.

On TV, content and scheduling restrictions mean that advertisements for products that are classed as high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) can no longer appear in or around children’s programmes or be targeted at them.

Like broadcast, the rules for non-broadcast prohibit the use of licensed characters or celebrities popular with children in ads for food and drink products (except fresh fruit and vegetables) that are targeted directly at pre-school or primary school children.

In summary, the children’s food and soft drink advertising rules state that ads should not:

• condone or encourage poor nutritional habits or an unhealthy lifestyle in children
• actively encourage them to eat or drink at or near bedtime, to eat frequently throughout the day or to replace main meals with confectionery or snack foods
• disparage good dietary practice
• promote consumption of a food purely to get a promotional offer
• encourage excessive consumption

The Advertising Codes are not set in stone. They change in response to societal concerns and changes in technology to ensure advertising remains legal, decent, honest and truthful. But they also remain evidence based. The Codes were subject to a full public consultation in 2009 which provided the opportunity for any new evidence to be presented that demonstrated the new food rules needed tightening further. Neither of the Code writing bodies, CAP and BCAP, saw persuasive evidence that showed the rules needed changing.

A lot of ongoing work has been undertaken to monitor the effectiveness of the tightened food rules. Since 2007, the ASA has conducted three proactive monitoring surveys of the food and soft drink sector to gauge compliance rates. Its latest 2009 survey revealed an overall compliance rate of 99.4%. Significantly, none of the ads breached any of the new rules.

Similarly, Ofcom, the ASA’s co-regulatory partner for broadcast advertising, carried out a review of the HFSS restrictions to assess whether or not the restrictions were having the expected effects. In concluding its review in 2009, Ofcom stated it was satisfied that the restrictions had reduced significantly the amount of HFSS advertising seen by children, and reduced the influence of techniques in HFSS advertising that are considered likely to be particularly attractive to children.

But that does not mean concerns have gone away. Indeed, the Department of Health recently commissioned the National Heart Forum to undertake an analysis of the regulatory and voluntary landscape around the marketing and promotion of food and drink to children. Its report outlines national and international regulations and voluntary commitments from businesses affecting food and drink marketing to children in order to identify current gaps and opportunities for action.
 
The ASA, CAP and BCAP will maintain a close eye on the food and soft drink sector. Ensuring that the rules are effective and reduce the appeal to and the exposure of children to ads for less healthy foods and diets is an ongoing commitment. The recent extension of the ASA’s online remit is a further demonstration of this. Our new responsibilities mean that we now apply the same food rules to marketing claims on companies own websites and in other non-paid space they control, like Facebook and Twitter. Whatever the concerns, the ASA and the wider self-regulatory system will always have an appetite for making sure advertising to children is appropriate and responsible.

Key ASA rulings involving food and soft drink advertisements:

Coca-Cola Great Britain

Mars UK Ltd t/a Mars Snackfood

United Biscuits (UK) Ltd t/a McVitie's

Kellogg Marketing and Sales Company (UK) Ltd