Table 1.

Summary of UK Government Model’s assessment of children’s digital advertising exposure to unhealthy food, calculated from ad spend.

Assumptions and Questions	Review and Findings
Base Assumption: Digital marketing exposure can be estimated from industry spend data.	Spend metrics poorly reflect the scale and reach of digital advertising. Finding: Digital ad spend is mistakenly equated with reach
Question 1: Of all-channel food and drink advertising, what proportion is spent on online/digital? Digital food advertising is 8%; Digital drink advertising is 5%. Source: Nielsen/WARC	Not supported by other sources—underestimated by a factor of 3 or more. Q1 Finding: The scale of digital marketing is underestimated
Question 2: Of UK advertising spend overall, how much is spent on food and drink? Food: £927 m (5% of all-channel spend); Drink: £314 m (1.6% of all-channel spend) Government Model sources: Group M and Statista	Likely underestimated—omits retail grocery and restaurants. Q2 Finding: Food and drink ad spend is underestimated
Question 3: What is the digital food and drink advertising spend total for the UK? Take the proportions from Question 1 and multiply by the spend data from Question 2 (8% and 5% digital advertising for food and drink). Food: 8% of £927 m = £74 m; Drink: 5% of £314 m = £15.7 m. Government Model result: Estimate UK online food/drink spend as £89.7 m	Question 1 data are faulty estimates of the digital market proportion, not supported by other credible sources. Question 2 data omit aspects of advertising for unhealthy products. Q3 Finding: Digital food and drink ad spend is therefore substantially underestimated
Question 4: What digital formats does food and drink advertising consist of? Apply digital advertising format proportions for all sectors to food and drink advertising.	Food and drink advertising spend skews heavily towards display, particularly native, not search Q4 Finding: The digital advertising format most frequently used by food and drink is miscalculated
Question 5: How many food and drink digital ad “impressions” are there in total? Divide the overall advertising spend by the price of ads to estimate the number of ads. Do this using the spend splits applied under Question 4; divide by CPM (Cost per Mille) Government Model result: Estimate 22 bn UK digital food/drink ad impressions	- Question 4 assumption is inaccurate. - CPM is fading in use, compared to CPC (Cost per Click) - Food and drink favours native ads (16 x cheaper than banner display) in social media. Q5 Finding: The total number of food and drink ads is underrepresented
Question 6: How many UK digital HFSS ads are there? Desktop banner display data show that 59% of food and drink ads are HFSS. Apply this to all digital food and drink ads. Government Model result: Estimate 13 billion digital HFSS impressions	Desktop banner display ads just 9% of digital market; food/drink advertising favours social media, i.e., native and display; ads in mobile (which young people favour) differ from desktop. Q6 Finding: The number of unhealthy ads is underrepresented
Question 7: What proportion of UK HFSS digital ads are seen by children? Apply panel survey data to estimate proportion of HFSS impressions seen by children: 5.3% Government Model source: Kantar CrossMedia tool. Final Government Model result: Estimate 0.73 bn HFSS impressions seen by children in UK annually	CrossMedia Kantar panel survey data assume generic viewing patterns—yet digital advertising is targeted. Also, 19% of the UK population are under 16 years and are active internet users; estimating 5% views appears very low. Final finding: Child exposure to unhealthy ads is very substantially underrepresented, by at least a factor of 10.