News • Children's Food Campaign
How to respond to CAP junk food marketing consultation
Children's Food Campaign has brought together health professionals, academics and marketing experts to help us formulate our response to the Committee of Advertising Practice consultation on the advertising to children of food and soft drink products in non-broadcast media. Read our summary response below and then follow the simple nstructions to submit your own response to the advertising regulator.
Below is a summary of Children’s Food Campaign’s response to the current CAP consultation on non-broadcast marketing of products high in fat, salt or sugar to children.
TAKE ACTION: To submit your own response, simply email it to childrensfood@cap.org.uk
Feel free to use our response to inform your own. A full version of our submission will be online shortly. The deadline for submissions is 5pm, Friday 22 July.
Q1a = Yes – the CAP Code should be updated to introduce tougher restrictions on the advertising of products high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS).
Q1b = No – the existing broadcast guidance on identifying brand advertising is not strong enough; tougher rules should be adopted for both broadcast and non-broadcast brand advertising.
Q2 = Yes – the Department of Health nutrient profiling model to identify HFSS products should be adopted immediately. That model should also be updated to reflect current nutrition guidance and to close loopholes.
Q3 = No – existing prohibitions on the use of promotions and licensed characters and celebrities to market food and drink to children should only be loosened for demonstrably ‘healthier’ products, but not for all non-HFSS products, and not for brands which include any prominent HFSS products.
Q4a = Yes - CAP should introduce a rule restricting the placement of HFSS product advertising.
Q4b = aged 17 and under – should be the audience that media placement restrictions apply to; although we note that option was not given in the consultation. Of the two options given, we support aged 15 and under.
Q5 = No – the 25% audience measure for the purpose of restricting HFSS product advertising provides insufficient protection to children. Additional measures to more broadly define the ‘particular appeal’ of marketing to children (including content, marketing techniques and placement) should be introduced.
Q6 = Yes – the placement restriction on HFSS product advertising should be applied to all non-broadcast media, including online advertising, without any exemptions. This also should include media currently outside of CAP’s remit, including brand characters, packaging, labelling, in-school marketing, in-store placement and sponsorship.
TAKE ACTION: to submit your own response, simply email it to childrensfood@cap.org.uk
Published Monday 11 July 2016
Children's Food Campaign: Better food and food teaching for children in schools, and protection of children from junk food marketing are the aims of Sustain's high-profile Children's Food Campaign. We also want clear food labelling that can be understood by everyone, including children.
