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British ban on junk ads could start food fight

Published: 07-03-2007.

Sydney Morning Herald
Julian Lee Marketing Reporter
March 5, 2007

The multibillion-dollar food industry is preparing to dig in for a tough fight after fears that a British ban on junk food advertising to children announced last week could trigger a domino effect that will inevitably reach Australia.

The advertising industry's peak body has admitted that the threat of a junk food ad ban has increased after a decision by the British media regulator, Ofcom, to ban ads for food and drinks high in fat, salt and sugar in children's TV programs from next month.

The Australian Association of National Advertisers has warned in a communique to members of the "next generation of threats" following the British ban, the first by a major industrialised nation to combat the impact junk food advertising has on childhood obesity.

"It is being widely seen as extending the battle ground from the food sector, through advertising to children and on to marketing more generally," writes the association's executive director, Collin Segelov.

He goes on to say that an analysis of the Ofcom ban "indicates work is already well advanced on extending equivalent restrictions to all media and to all consumers".

His comments are a marked change from late last year when the ad industry hailed the introduction of its self-regulatory food and drink advertising code as having seen off the threat of a ban.

Campaigners are preparing for the next flashpoint, the review of the Children's Television Standards which regulate, among other things, the type of advertising that can appear in C and P programs. A discussion document is due in the next month and state and territory health ministers are expected to call for tougher restrictions in their submission.

Privately, advertising executives fear a ban should a federal Labor government be elected. The Opposition's health spokeswoman, Nicola Roxon, has not made it clear where Labor stands.

"At the last election we had a very strict policy that said we'd completely ban junk food ads during children's television," she said. "That's certainly a policy we'll be considering in the lead-up to this year's election, but nothing's been determined yet. We certainly know that parents hate the pester power created by these ads."

The executive director of the Advertising Federation of Australia, Lesley Brydon, admitted that the British ban had changed the landscape but that it was "absolutely not the case" that the ad and food industries were preparing for the inevitable.

But she said Ofcom's move could trigger a domino effect of regulatory bans in other advanced Western markets.

She said the installation of codes and regulations and an industry-funded ad campaign promoting healthy exercise was evidence that advertisers had done enough.

The public affairs expert Gabriel McDowell of the consultancy Res Publica said the industry had to do more to stave off a ban.

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