New food rules for non-broadcast ads

11 April 2007

The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), the body responsible for writing the UK non-broadcast advertising code, has announced new rules for food and soft drink product advertisements to children. The new rules, designed to help protect children’s health,  recognise and respond to public concern about rising levels of childhood obesity. The rules will come into force on 1 July 2007.

In summary, the new rules state that advertisements for food or soft drink products should not: 

• Condone or encourage poor nutritional habits or an unhealthy lifestyle in children
• Encourage excessive consumption of food or drink products
• Use promotional offers in an irresponsible way
• Use “high pressure” or “hard sell” techniques
• Use licensed characters or celebrities popular with children if targeted directly at pre-school or primary school children
• Give a misleading impression of the nutritional health benefits of the product.

The rules provide for fresh fruit or fresh vegetables to be advertised using techniques restricted for other food or drink products.

The new rules protect all children, defined as persons under 16.  In recognition of the Government’s concern to target regulatory measures at primary school children, CAP has placed tougher restrictions on food or drink product ads that are directly targeted at primary school or pre-school children through their content. As a result, the rules ban the use of celebrities and licensed characters, promotional offers and health or nutrition claims in food or drink advertisements directly targeted at those age groups through their content.

CAP has produced the new rules in response to the Department of Health’s ‘Choosing Health’ White Paper, which asked for stronger controls on non-broadcast advertising for food and drink products.  The rules will come into effect for all non-broadcast campaigns from 1 July to coincide with the coming into effect of stricter TV content rules and will be administered by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).     CAP has produced a Help Note to give advertisers guidance on how the rules are intended to be interpreted and applied. CAP’s advice service is offering free help and guidance to advertisers and agencies, to ensure future campaigns comply with the new rules. The Copy Advice Team can be contacted on 020 7492 2100 / copyadvice@cap.org.uk .

The Chairman of CAP, Andrew Brown, says: “These comprehensive new rules are designed to help protect children’s health while still allowing advertisers an appropriate degree of freedom to promote their products. Childhood obesity and the future of children’s health are of prime concern to all and these measures represent a strong commitment by advertisers to promote all food and drink products responsibly.”

Download the new rules
Download the Help Note

 Questions and Answers

1. Why is CAP introducing new restrictions on food and drink marketing communications to children?

In 2002, the Government’s Chief Medical Officer reported that: “the risk factor which is causing the most concern for the future health of our country is obesity… Action is needed to help and support people – particularly children – to reshape their diet.”

In November 2004, the Department of Health (DH) published its ‘Choosing Health’ White Paper, which set out a comprehensive approach to improving the nation’s health.  It included measures for reducing obesity and improving diet and nutrition.  To those ends, Government called for action to restrict the advertising and promotion to children of foods and drinks that are high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS) in broadcast and non-broadcast media.

The Government subsequently asked Ofcom to consider proposals for strengthening its rules on television advertising of food and drinks to children.

Government also sought stronger controls in non-broadcast media.  The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) pledged its commitment to create new rules covering the content of marketing communications for food and drinks to children.

2. Why do the new restrictions protect primary school and pre-school children only?  Why not all children?

The new rules do protect all children, defined as persons under the age of 16.  The rules ensure that marketing communications do not condone or encourage poor nutritional habits or an unhealthy lifestyle in children.  For example, marketing communications should not:

• encourage excessive consumption or attitudes associated with poor diets
• place unfair pressure on children to buy products or ask others to purchase products on their behalf
• encourage children to eat or drink a product only to take advantage of a promotional offer.

CAP has created supplementary rules to protect further what the Government recognises as the most vulnerable age group – primary school children.  Those rules ban the use of celebrities and licensed characters, promotional offers and health and nutrition claims in food or drink advertisements directly targeted at primary school and pre-school children.  Advertisements for fresh fruit and vegetables will be excluded from those restrictions.

3. Why did CAP decide to treat all foods and drinks the same?  Why did it not restrict “bad foods” only? 

A balanced diet is fundamentally important to health.  This is achieved through eating the correct combination of foods, taking into account how often foods are eaten and portion size.  A banana and chocolate bar can both feature in a balanced diet. These new rules prevent advertisements from including content that undermines the principles of a balanced diet.

4. The rules covering the television advertising of food and soft drink to children discriminate between HFSS foods and non-HFSS foods using the FSA’s Nutrient Profiling model.   Why didn’t CAP use the same model?

CAP does not have the relevant expertise in nutritional profiling.  It took expert advice on the Food Standards Agency’s Nutrient Profiling model and concluded that the model was not appropriate for non-broadcast advertising.  (Because TV advertising falls outside its remit, CAP makes no comment on the use of the model for broadcast advertising).

The FSA model was specifically intended to be used for television advertising.  Television is widely considered to be more influential than other media and CAP considers that the nutrient profiling model has serious flaws.  For example:

• The combination of foods eaten, how often they are eaten and the portion size is important in achieving a balanced diet and none of those factors are considered in the Nutrient Profiling model.
• It does not consider the vitamin or mineral content or how many additives a food contains - aspects that may be just as important as the nutritional content.
• It seems to be based on the scientifically invalid assumption that 'good' nutrients can balance out 'bad' nutrients.
• It classifies many nutritious products commonly eaten by children as 'unhealthy', for example cheese, raisins and breakfast cereals.

 5. Why do CAP’s rules differ from the rules on the television advertising of food and drinks to children?

Television advertising is different to advertising in other media. Already, the TV code contains stricter rules than the CAP Code for advertising of products such as alcohol, psychic services, premium rate adult services etc. Research conducted for Ofcom by Professor Livingstone concluded that TV advertising, combined with TV viewing in general, has a modest effect on children’s food preferences.  CAP considered that combination is simply not relevant to other media.  Television provides dedicated children’s channels and programming slots that attract an almost exclusive or disproportionately high child audience. Ofcom considered that children’s television airtime is a particularly important time of day for younger children to be exposed to food advertisements.

6. Why has CAP decided not to ban food or drink advertisements in media targeted at children?

The CAP Code is primarily concerned with the content of marketing communications.  No-one is seriously suggesting that children should be legally prevented from buying or consuming food.  CAP, however, acknowledged the concern about the direct targeting of food advertisements at younger children by banning the use of celebrities and licensed characters, promotional offers and health and nutrition claims in food or drink advertisements directly targeted at primary school and pre-school children.

CAP has not seen persuasive evidence that children are harmed by non-broadcast advertising for food.  CAP is also concerned to protect and promote a variety of different media available to different sections of society.  With this in mind, CAP has decided not to impose specific volume restrictions on food and drink advertisements targeted at children.   The content of all such ads must comply with the new rules.

7. Who will consider complaints about potential breaches of these new rules?  What will happen if these rules are breached?

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the independent body set up by the advertising industry, will police these rules and respond to complaints about advertisements.  In the event the ASA considers a breach has occurred it shall require the advertisement to be withdrawn.

8. Will all celebrities or only those celebrities popular with children be banned from appearing in food and drink advertisements?

The restriction on the use of celebrities and licensed characters is only relevant to food or drink advertisements that are directly targeted at primary school or pre-school children through their content.  Those advertisements cannot include any celebrity, or licensed character, popular with children.

9. How does CAP define if the content of advertisements is “directly targeted at” primary and pre-school children?

It’s for the ASA to decide if the content of an ad is directly targeted at certain age groups.  In considering complaints about advertisements, the ASA will consider for which age group the ad is intended.

10. Will the new restrictions apply to the websites of food and drink manufacturers?

No.  The CAP Code does not apply to companies’ websites.  It does apply to sales promotions on websites and to advertising paid for on third party sites, for example banner and pop-up ads.

11. How will the restrictions help to tackle obesity?

Changing the way children choose and consume food is one part of the much wider Government initiative to reduce childhood obesity, a project which touches all aspects of children’s lives including education, parenting and physical activity. The Government will review the effectiveness of all those measures, including a change in the nature and balance of food and drink promotion to children, after ten years.

12. When will the new rules take effect?

From 1 July 2007.  This coincides with the date on which the new TV food rules come into effect.

13. What kind of media will be affected by the new restrictions?

All media covered by the CAP code will be affected by these restrictions, for example:

Print and press ads
Posters
Cinema commercials
Direct mail
Email and text messages
Banners and pop-ups

Other restrictions in the CAP Code also apply to all food and drink advertisements where appropriate.  For example, no advertiser may send an e-mail or text message to a person under 16 without parental consent.

14. Where can companies get pre-publication advice on their new food and drink advertisements?

CAP’s Copy Advice service provides an effective, free-of-charge and confidential way of checking the content and placement of non-broadcast ads, direct marketing or sales promotion campaigns before they go live.  With a 24-hour turnaround, CAP’s team of advisers can identify potential problems and suggest changes that will bring a campaign into line with the new rules.  Call 020 7492 2100 9am-6pm Monday to Friday or e-mail draft materials to copyadvice@cap.org.uk.

15. Why are brand equity characters exempted from the ban on celebrities and licensed characters featuring in food or dink advertisements directly targeted at primary school or pre-school children?

Brand-generated characters do not have the same status (iconic or of authority) as celebrities and licensed characters can have.  They are uniquely associated with a particular branded product and children don’t engage with them in the same way as they can do with celebrities and licensed characters known from programming or film.

A number of advertising codes and regulations internationally have recognised that brand-generated characters are qualitatively different from celebrities and licensed characters and should therefore be treated differently from a regulatory perspective.

16. Who will review the impact of the new rules?

The Government will carry out an interim review in late 2007, followed by a full review in 2009, to establish the extent of change to the nature and balance of food advertising.

CAP will carry out its own compliance and monitoring projects.

17. Why didn’t CAP hold a public consultation on the new rules?

There was an extensive period of public consultation supporting the development of the TV food and drink advertising content rules.  This raised many of the issues that have been considered by CAP as it has drawn up these new rules.  The priority for CAP is to ensure that the non-broadcast rules come into force at the same time as the TV rules, to ensure consistency in advertising across all media.