The era of big health information campaigns is over because the public no longer trusts messages sent out by the government, advertising experts told public health workers this week.
At a conference to discuss how eating habits differ in the United Kingdom between rich and poor people and the resulting inequalities in health, delegates were told that to educate people about nutrition they must adopt the same marketing practices as commercial giants such as Philip Morris or Coca Cola.
Jeff French, project director of the national social marketing strategy for health at the National Consumer Council, said people didn’t want to be preached to.
He said, "Government led, top-down information aimed at a generalist audience is no good. What we need is consumer led, partnership approaches aimed at particular sectors. Coordination of the message is also bad. Often the first a health visitor or GP knows about a campaign is when they see the posters. That’s a national scandal if you consider the systems the NHS has in place."
Dr French told delegates not to be satisfied with just "raising awareness."
"It’s not good enough that people just saw the advert. You need to develop services and products that help them."
Lloyd Burdett, associate director of the marketing consultancy the Henley Centre, said: "It is very important who sends the message out. If there is a government sponsored logo on an advertisement it is harder for the consumer to take in, so you need to work with those bodies that consumers do trust." The NHS needed to "segment" the public and target those most in need of help, he said.
Claire Cater, director of the communications firm Bell Pottinger, suggested a "life miles" scheme. As with air miles, people would accumulate points that they could cash in for benefits such as holidays, but they would earn them for various healthy activities.
It was also suggested by Professor Gerard Hastings, director of the Institute for Social Marketing, at Stirling University, that the NHS maintain contact with the 4000 low income smokers who had now successfully gone through smoking cessation clinics. They were happy customers who could be persuaded to buy into other services linked to nutrition.
The conference, organised by the Westminster Diet and Health Forum looked at the consultation document called Choosing a Better Diet , which is part of the Choosing Health white paper on how to educate people about their health.
Delegates heard that the UK national diet still lacks fruit and vegetables.
Despite the government’s "five a day" campaign to increase consumption of fruit and vegetables, on average only 20% of children achieve that target, said Maggie Barker, deputy regional director of public health in London and board member of the public health laboratory. She added that there were still children who had not seen a banana by the age of 4.
But Imogen Sharp, head of the health inequalities programme for the UK presidency of the EU at the Department of Health, said the "five a day" campaign had led to an increase of one portion a week among the lowest consumers of fruit and vegetables. More than a million children aged between 4 and 6 years were also receiving a free piece of fruit in school each day, she added. Devon and Cornwall were piloting a reformed "welfare food scheme," whereby low income families with children under 5 years received tokens for fruit and vegetables as well as milk.