Barry Delaney, ex-owner of an advertising agency and now industry consultant, is still shocked by the UK ban on tobacco advertising, brought in on Valentine's Day last year. “I really didn't think it would happen in my lifetime,” he says, despite being one of the first industry figures to oppose cigarette advertising.
Figure 1.
First smoking, then junk food: now advertising executives are wondering where public health campaigners will strike next
Credit: STUART HIGGINS/REX
But happen it did, and its effect is still reverberating. The victory has given campaigners the confidence to carry the fight over into other products that pose a threat to public health—notably junk food, alcohol, and cars.
Although no one will admit it publicly, reports suggest that concern is growing among advertising agency executives that the industry could be slapped with another statutory ban, this time on TV advertising of unhealthy food for children. The report on obesity of the House of Commons Select Committee on Health, published in May, stopped short of demanding an immediate ban on advertising targeted at children. But it said the food and advertising industries should be given three years' grace to change their policies.
At the same time, alcohol as well as fatty foods is regularly being referred to as “the new tobacco” in the trade press—so much so that the Advertising Association has voluntarily offered to tighten up regulations governing the advertising of alcohol in the wake of public angst about binge drinking and a linked rise in violence in city centres at weekends.
One Advertising Association insider was recently quoted as saying: “When you are staring down the barrel of a gun, it's more likely you'll set aside your differences. Just going on as we are is not an option.”
However, Andrew Brown, the association's director general, doesn't take the position of the hunted prey. He singles out alcohol and fatty foods as vulnerable areas for further regulation, but believes that “serious and constructive” dialogue with the government is working. “To be frank, I don't think the government or Ofcom [the regulator for the UK communications industries] favour a ban on alcohol but do favour revisiting codes.”
What could change? “I think the association with sex and alcohol is a whole area the industry could do something about. The code already forbids using anybody who is, or who appears to be, under the age of 26. One of the areas that could be revisited is how people behave in these ads. So if you have somebody over 26 behaving in a “laddish” way that could have a particular appeal to adolescents. A number of drink companies have tightened up their own internal rules.”
Referring to the BMA, which has been the most prominent body to call for a ban on alcohol advertising, he politely says its arguments were “a standard response” with little evidence to back them up. “If you look at the expenditure figures in advertising, the heaviest area is in beers and spirits. But these sections are in decline. The least is spent in the area of white wine, but this is the area showing growth. The debate has raged about alcopops, but these products are in a big sales decline; it is a fashion that has had its day.”
Barry Delaney adds that advertising products other than tobacco isn't intrinsically harmful. “Tobacco is quite distinct because it is the only legally available product that, if you use it as the manufacturers intend, it will do you some harm. With booze—another candidate for a ban—millions of people use it and don't even get drunk. If you ban advertising on these products the world won't come to an end, but it will distract people from doing something more practical.”
He says further regulation could see a renaissance in surrealist-style advertising, epitomised in the Silk Cut and Benson and Hedges commercials, but adds that most advertising is already quite sophisticated. “Big brands don't tend to promote the quality of their products, they just remind you that they are there. McDonald's seldom claims any nutritional value to their hamburgers, for example. So it's easy to comply with laws and regulations.”
The basic dilemma for the advertising industry is that on one hand it is trying to convince businesses that advertising really does work, while on the other it is telling the government that advertising isn't as powerful as it thinks it is. One of the solutions currently being discussed is along the lines of the Portman Group's “responsible drinking” initiative, in order to pre-empt any government interference on advertising to children.
One of the agencies currently involved in brainstorming the problem is Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, an agency that creates advertising for Guinness and also is responsible for the government's “Think!” road safety campaign. Its diverse range of clients shows how the power of advertising can be harnessed to good effect, says its chief executive Cilla Snowball. “The evidence from Sweden and Quebec suggests a ban on advertising to children would have no beneficial effect. The code could be improved, but the real answer to the problem lies in dealing with the factors that drive long term behavioural change. We are already making a start by working with food clients on the development and promotion of healthy eating and active lifestyle messages.”
The mood of the press is such that banning advertising on certain products would be an easy electoral gain for the Labour government. A motion to support a ban on television advertising to children was quickly signed by 144 members of parliament.
A spokesman for the pressure group Sustain was dismissive of the advertising industry's claims that it was working in partnership with the government to improve health: “The industry has done nothing. I think they are canny and know the pressure won't just go away but they will fight tooth and nail. They strongly deny they are part of the problem, so how can they be part of the solution? Even if they did acknowledge weaknesses, the food industry is so competitive and so diverse that it would be unrealistic to think that they could come together as one voice.”