On 11 April, the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), the body responsible for writing the UK non-broadcast advertising code, published the new rules for food and soft drink product advertisements to children. The rules will come into force on 1 July 2007.

 

The new rules state that:

 

- Marketing communications should not condone or encourage poor nutritional habits or an unhealthy lifestyle in children.

- Marketing communications should not directly advise or ask children to buy or to ask their parents or other adults to make enquiries or purchases.

- Marketing communications should neither try to sell to children by directly appealing to emotions such as pity, fear, or self-confidence nor suggest that having the advertised product somehow confers superiority, for example making a child more confident, clever, popular, or successful.

- Marketing communications addressed to children should avoid “high pressure” and “hard sell” techniques; they should neither directly urge children to buy or persuade others to buy nor suggest that children could be bullied, cajoled or otherwise put under pressure to acquire the advertised item.

- Products and prices should not be presented in marketing communications in a way that suggests children or their families can easily afford them.

- Marketing communications addressed to or targeted directly at children should not 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.

- Except those for fresh fruit or fresh vegetables, food or drink advertisements that are targeted directly at pre-school or primary school children through their content should not include promotional offers.

- Marketing communications for collection-based promotions should not seem to urge children or their parents to buy excessive quantities of food.

- Except those for fresh fruit or fresh vegetables, food or drink advertisements that are targeted directly at pre-school or primary school children through their content should not include licensed characters or celebrities popular with children.

- Marketing communications should not disparage good dietary practice or the selection of options, such as fresh fruit and vegetables that accepted dietary opinion recommends should form part of the average diet.

 

The Committee of Advertising Practice also released a Help Note intended to help marketers and their agencies interpret the new rules (available for download below).

 

Source: Advertising Education Forum

 

On the UK Department of Health’s Food and Drink Advertising and Promotion Forum, discussing the extension of the proposed broadcast rules to non-broadcast media, the advertising industry’s interests were represented by ISBA (the UK’s advertiser association) together with the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), the Advertising Association (AA) and the Food Advertising Unit (FAU) as well as the self-regulatory organisation, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).