After respected think-tank Demos called for a tax on adverts for unhealthy food, the IBSA has spoken out against this proposal. Chief amongst its arguments is the fact that advertising has been proven not to affect consumers’ food-choices. However, a lawsuit brought in the US against four major fastfood companies highlights the issue’s growing importance.
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Demos, the political think-tank, recently released a report calling for added taxes to be placed on advertising for highly processed and fatty foods in order to fund a national health promotion council. This report was attacked today by the ISBA, ‘The Voice of British Advertisers’, as being simplistic and unfair.
The ISBA has four weighty arguments: that there is no one type of food responsible for ‘unhealthy eating’; that advertisers should not be expected to solve complex social problems; that the report is intended to grab headlines; and that advertising does not affect consumption of specific food categories.
The fact that advertisers are at pains to tell the world how ineffective advertising can be indicates the growing level of concern in the fastfood business that drastic action will be taken by the government or private bodies.
In the US, the first class-action lawsuit has been brought against the major fastfood companies: McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC and Wendy’s. The complaint is that the companies are “irresponsible and deceptive in the posting of their nutritional information…and that they create a de facto addiction in their consumers, particularly the poor and children.”
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By GlobalDataThe suit has largely been dismissed as a shoddy replica of the suits against tobacco companies. Industry officials have been quick to point out that nobody was forced to eat their food. But while the chances of the suit’s success are slim, such actions raise a
considerable specter over the future of fastfood advertising. Understandably, the ISBA wishes to deflect attention towards other causes for the increasing popularity of unhealthy food.
One reason for this is the trend for supermarkets to increase the price of healthy food to take advantage of the ‘Jamie Oliver’ effect, potentially leaving the poor stuck with processed, unhealthy food.
Related research: Datamonitor, “Changing Mealtimes” (DMCM0089)
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