Health campaigners angry as review fails to stop online junk food ads targeting children

Responding to the Committees on Advertising Practice statement and literature review on online marketing to children, Malcolm Clark, co-ordinator of the Children's Food Campaign, said:

"The Committees on Advertising Practice seem to have done little more than stick their fingers in their ears and pretend there is no problem. They did that two years ago, when the Children’s Food Campaign first presented them with scientific evidence on the impact of advergames and with case studies on how companies were using the lax rules covering digital marketing to promote less healthy foods to children online. Now CAP seem to be simply doing so again, dismissing concerns despite the CAP Code lagging ever further behind technological developments.  If the CAP Code isn’t relevant to twenty-first century forms of advertising, most people will question whether it is fit for purpose any more.

“The story of the public health Responsibility Deal clearly shows that voluntary moves by industry are not enough to secure change, especially on food promotion. CAP is giving very few reasons to disprove that notion.  The marketing rules are written by industry insiders, and CAP have simply re-announced a monitoring exercise they said they would undertake last year and half-heartedly reminded companies to follow the existing rules, without any consideration of whether those rules are being effectively enforced. In addition, the Advertising Standards Authority – the self-regulatory body which applies the rules –  is based in the same offices as CAP, shares some of the same staff, and the public could be forgiven for concluding that the ASA might be unwilling to bite the hand that feeds it.”

“The Children's Food Campaign has long been calling for the loopholes to be closed which currently allow junk food and sugary snacks and drinks to be marketed to children.  We want Government to crack down on the use of child-friendly brand characters, advergames and misleading health and nutrition claims used to promote less healthy products and especially to target children.  We also want to see the advertising rules extended to cover in-store placement and promotion of products, as well as universally strengthened to provide the same level of protection as the (hopefully improved) broadcast regulations would.”

 

For more on this story, see articles in the Sunday Independent and Food Navigator, and the press statement from the British Heart Foundation.