On 18 October, the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) released a new voluntary code on Food and Beverages Advertising and Marketing Communications. In addition to general principles, it includes a section specifically dedicated to food and drink advertising and marketing to children.

The new code will be enforced by the Australian SRO, the Advertising Standards Board (ASB) and prohibits the following:

- Encouraging children to urge their parents to purchase food products;
- Undermining parents' role in guiding children’s diets;
- Misleading health and nutritional claims and inappropriate price minimization;
- Improperly exploiting children's imagination by implying that products will give children physical, social or psychological advantages;
- Encouraging excessive consumption.

New provisions require that advertising and/or marketing communications directed towards Children must not:

3.1 ... be misleading or deceptive or seek to mislead or deceive in relation to any nutritional or health claims, nor employ ambiguity or a misleading or deceptive sense of urgency, nor feature practices such as price minimisation inappropriate to the age of the intended audience.
3.2 ... improperly exploit Childrens’ imagination in ways which might reasonably be regarded as being based upon an intent to encourage those Children to consume what would be considered, acting reasonably, as excessive quantities of the product/s.
3.3 ... state or imply that possession or use of a particular product will afford physical, social or psychological advantage over other Children, or that non-possession of the product would have the opposite effect.
3.4 ... undermine parents and/or other adults responsible for a child’s welfare in their role of guiding diet and lifestyle choices.
3.5 ... include any appeal to Children to urge parents and/or other adults responsible for a child’s welfare to buy particular products for them.
3.6 ... use popular personalities or celebrities (live or animated) to advertise or market products, premiums or services in a manner that obscures the distinction between commercial promotion and program or editorial content.
3.7 ... feature ingredients or premiums that are not an integral element of the product/s or service/s being offered.

Source: Advertising Education Forum

The full document is available from the AANA Secretariat.