Are food and beverage marketing restrictions cost effective?

An Australian study found that the reduction of unhealthy food and beverage TV advertising was the most cost effective way of addressing obesity.

What would the effect be on the industry?

In 2008, Ofcom assessed the overall impact of the food and beverage restrictions on the advertising revenue of television broadcasters. The assessment showed that while there was a reduction in food drink advertising revenue, the change in net advertising revenue actually increased. The researchers conclude that “restrictions on food and drink advertising have not been the most significant factor affecting broadcasters” as advertising revenues went to others areas than the food and drink advertising area.

Lessons from Tobacco has shown that there was little economic impact with tobacco marketing restrictions:

Ÿ The economic impact of tobacco control on small business is virtually nothing and in some cases small businesses have seen an improvement in revenue in parallel with smoke-free policies.

Ÿ Industry predicted the cancellation of the country’s most popular festivals and sporting events with tobacco sponsorship restrictions. However, festivals and events that were once sponsored by tobacco companies are still successful today. For example, the fireworks festival in Vancouver, BC was once the “Benson and Hedges Symphony of Fire” which is now that “Honda Celebrations of Lights”. There are many examples to show that despite the predictions of not allowing tobacco companies to sponsor festivals and events, other companies have picked up the sponsorship and taken over the advertising. The same will hold true for restrictions around the food industry.

The effectiveness of publically funded health promotion messages tend to be overwhelmed by the marketing resources of food and beverage companies.

-Dr. Hans Krueger

Thank you to our speaker

Dr. Hans Krueger is the founder, H. Krueger & Associates Inc., which was founded in 1996 to service the field of health care management. The company provides economic and epidemiological analysis for a variety of major health care authorities and agencies in BC. The company has recently expanded to central Canada, including federal and national agencies.

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What is an international best practice?

• ŸThe World Health Organization recommends adopting a comprehensive approach
• Internationally, there is no M2K approach that is comprehensive. Some countries have adopted partial approaches, which have not proven to decrease exposure of marketing of food and beverages to children
• In order to develop a policy which restricts M2K, “marketing” “food” “to” “children” (“by”) all need to be defined

“When that policy window opens, civil society organizations need to be there with a set of definitions that they’ve all agreed upon. That’s really what needs to come first”

–Dr. Corinna Hawkes

Evidence of the effectiveness of Partial M2K approaches

• ŸEvidence demonstrates that partial restrictions do reduce the amount of M2K, according to the definitions and that total exposure is not necessarily reduced
• Strongest evidence suggests that marketing has been migrating beyond the definitions. Therefore, we need to think carefully about we design these policies

Lessons for Success

• ŸFocus on the definition of the approach to avoid industry increasing marketing in other ways.
• Researchers wont often engage with the indicators that the industry is using. It would be good for public health researchers to use the same indicators as industry in order to compare the results.

Discussion

• ŸThere is evidence on the long-term effects of food and beverage marketing to children, but we have to look in the marketing literature.
• How do we prioritize this over other policy options? 1) such marketing conflicts with public health messages. Removing such marketing will enhance and increase efficiency of health promotion approaches 2) long term impact on preferences. If you are going to tackle obesity in the longer term, need to change habits that occur early on in life.
• We need to remember that advertising is subliminal; we don’t realize we are affected by it so it is not surprising that parents don’t see the importance of restricting food and beverage marketing to children

Thank you to our speaker

Dr. Corinna Hawkes is currently the Head of Policy and Public Affairs for World Cancer Research Fund International. Dr. Hawkes has extensive experience and expertise in gathering and analyzing information on food policies for diet and health. She has advanced the study and application of food policies to address obesity and NCDs in her work for the WHO, national governments, foundations and NGOs.

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Lois Abraham / The Canadian Press

Jamie Oliver is calling on Justin Trudeau to develop and execute a plan for child nutrition, including addressing unhealthy food and beverage advertising to children. Read more…

Municipal, provincial and federal “Marketing to Kids” (M2K) position statements (N=13) were identified in a non-comprehensive review. The positions, as well as commonalities and differences between them, were examined and analyzed. Below is a summary of areas of consensus and areas to be worked on.

Consensus between position statements

Ÿ Type of approach 

-Positions agree that a legislative approach is required.

Ÿ Regulatory actors

-Positions view the Federal and Provincial Governments as the regulatory actors.

Ÿ Definitions of marketing

-Across the position statements, there was a great amount of consensus on the definitions of ‘marketing’ and ‘advertising’.

-Marketing: broad range of activities (the promotion, price, placement and placement of a product).

-Advertising: a subset of marketing and includes only promotion.

-Half of the position statements specified marketing and half specified advertising. All agree that regulations must reflect diversity and intensity of modern marketing/advertising.

Ÿ General rationale for restricting M2K

-Food and beverage marketing associated with obesity

-Children’s cognitive vulnerability.

-High Frequency of M2K in Canada and healthfulness of this marketing.

-High rates of childhood obesity (poor food intake, link with cancer, heart disease).

Areas to be worked on

Ÿ Various key recommendations

1) No commercial marketing to children (Quebec Model):

-Association of Local Public Health Agencies, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Ontario Public Health Association, Ontario Society of Nutrition Professionals in Public Health, Toronto Board of Health

2) No commercial food or beverage marketing to children:

-Alberta Policy Coalition, Heart and Stroke Foundation (BC &

Yukon)

3) No unhealthy food or beverage marketing:

-Canadian Medical Association, Childhood Obesity

Foundation, Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of

Canada, Hypertension Advisory Committee, Ontario

Medical Association

4) Improve self regulation:

-Dietitians of Canada

Ÿ Age recommendations

-Most (7/13) recommend for under 13 year old

-Some position statements did not specify an age.

*Note: Industry makes their advertising decisions based on two age groups: 2-11 & 12-17.

Ÿ There is a lack of consensus rooted in differences in

-Understanding of the problem

-Desired outcomes

-Viewing M2K as either an obesity or an ethics issue

Discussion 

Ÿ What is the evidence to support restricting M2K? Childhood obesity rates in Quebec are lower, etc. but very difficult to say that a policy is linked directly. To have an impact on obesity you have to intervene on so many ways.

Ÿ The Canadian government has been trying to define “unhealthy food” and have made no progress. For this definition we can look at what other countries have done e.g. The UK Nutrient Profile Model.

Ÿ Before engaging the public in this issue, it would be good to first see discussion amongst NGOs, academics, clinicians about the pros and cons of each position. Ideally, this would be a diverse collaboration. Municipal governments also need to become more involved.

Ÿ We can then engage the public on where the direction they see policy going. Parents are not aware of how much marketing is happening so getting them involved is key.

Thank You to our Speaker

Monique Potvin Kent, PhD, is a part-time and Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa in the Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences. For the past 8 years, she has been conducting interdisciplinary obesity prevention research with a policy focus. Currently, she is examining children’s exposure to food and beverage marketing in Canada on television and on the Internet, the marketing techniques used to sell food and beverages to children, and the nutritional quality of this marketing.

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