The Obesity Policy Coalition (OPC) recently announced that the Australian Advertising Standards Board (ASB) has upheld its complaint alleging that a TV commercial for Kellogg Co.’s Coco Pops® cereal violated the Responsible Children’s Marketing Initiative (RCMI). According to ASB’s case report, the advertisement under review featured a bowl of Coco Pops® playing “Marco Polo” in a cereal bowl, followed by an image of a child consuming the product and a voiceover stating, “Just like a chocolate milkshake only crunchy.” OPC claimed that this commercial violated RCMI by (i) communicating directly with children, (ii) advertising a product that does not “represent a healthy dietary choice consistent with established scientific or Australian government standards,” and (iii) failing to promote “healthy dietary habits or physical activity.” In particular, the coalition argued that the commercial not only imitated children’s voices and behavior in a bid to appeal “overwhelmingly to children,” but was broadcast during…
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Alcohol Concern, a U.K. charity “working on alcohol issues,” has issued a report titled “Stick to the Facts” that claims “[a]dvertisers exploit weak rules to develop content that appeals to both adults and young people. Audience thresholds limiting the percentage of minors insufficiently shield those underage. Children and young people in the UK aged 10-15 years are today exposed to significantly more alcohol adverts than adults than would be expected, given their viewership patterns.” The report also claims that self-regulation, particularly as to digital and online content, “is failing to adequately protect children and young people.” Among other matters, the charity calls on policymakers to prohibit alcohol company sponsorship of sporting, cultural and music events, including branded merchandise, restrict advertising at cinemas for all films without an 18 classification, and regulate alcohol promotion by statute, independent of the alcohol and advertising industries.
Nickelodeon and its parent company Viacom have purportedly declined to change their advertising policies after four senators penned a June 10, 2013, letter asking the network to further limit the food and beverage commercials shown during children’s TV programming. “As an entertainment company, Nickelodeon’s primary mission is to make the highest quality entertainment content in the world for kids,” the company reportedly said in its response to recent criticism. “That is our expertise. We believe strongly that we must leave the science of nutrition to the experts.” According to a recent article in The New York Times, which reported that food advertising accounts for approximately 18 percent of Nickelodeon’s annual sales, the network has also highlighted its voluntary efforts to reduce advertisements for foods and beverages with high sugar or fat content, its promotion of health and wellness messaging, and its licensing restrictions designed to prevent the use of popular…
The American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates has formally adopted three new resolutions at its 2013 Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, that aim to define obesity as a disease, prohibit the marketing of energy drinks to adolescents younger than age 18, and end the eligibility of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). According to news sources, delegates reached the decision to recognize obesity “as a disease state with multiple aspects requiring a range of interventions to advance obesity treatment and prevention” after hours of debate raised questions about how physicians and policymakers will use the declaration to counter rising obesity rates in the United States. “Recognizing obesity as a disease will help change the way the medical community tackles this complex issue that affects approximately one in three Americans,” said AMA board member Patrice Harris in a statement announcing the resolution. “The AMA is committed…
The World Health Organization (WHO) has published a new report, “Marketing of foods high in fat, salt and sugar to children,” that calls the marketing of “unhealthy” foods to children “disastrously effective,” alleging the food industry is driving rising obesity rates in children by using “cheap new marketing channels, such as social media and smart phone apps” to promote fat-, salt- and sugar-laden foods. “Millions of children across the European Region are subjected to unacceptable marketing practices,” said Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO regional director for Europe. “Policy simply must catch up and address the reality of an obese childhood in the 21st century. Children are surrounded by adverts urging them to consume foods high in fat, sugar and salt, even when they are in places where they should be protected, such as schools and sports facilities.” According to a WHO news release, although all 53 member states in the European Region…
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) has granted the defendants’ motion for centralization in litigation involving allegations that Subway Sandwich Shops, Inc., and Doctor’s Associates, Inc., “engaged in a false or misleading advertising campaign regarding the size of the Subway Footlong sandwich.” In Re: Subway Footlong Sandwich Mktg. & Sales Practices Litig., MDL No. 2439 (JPML, decided June 10, 2013). According to the order, the seven actions addressed by JPML involve common factual questions, with plaintiffs alleging “that defendants have uniform standards and practices with respect to the manufacturing process and franchisee training which result in the actual length of the sandwich being materially shorter than advertised in violation of state consumer protection laws.” JPML has therefore chosen to centralize the actions in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, which provides “a geographically central forum for this nationwide litigation, and will be convenient and accessible for…
A federal court in California has granted in part and denied in part the motion to dismiss filed by General Mills in litigation alleging that certain of its Nature Valley® products are deceptively labeled and advertised as “natural” because they contain sweeteners, such as high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), high-maltose corn syrup or maltodextrin and rice maltodextrin, which are purportedly “highly processed” and therefore not “natural.” Janney v. General Mills, No. 12-3919 (N.D. Cal., filed May 10, 2013). The plaintiffs are represented by Center for Science in the Public Interest attorney Stephen Gardner. The court disagreed with General Mills that the primary jurisdiction doctrine barred the claims, finding that the Food and Drug Administration “has signaled a relative lack of interest in devoting its limited resources to what it evidently considers a minor issue, or in establishing some ‘uniformity in administration’ with regard to the use of ‘natural’ in food…
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) has issued guidance to industry on the “Use of Social Media in the Advertising of Alcohol Beverages.” According to the May 13, 2013, circular, TTB considers that the advertising provisions of the Federal Alcohol Administration Act (FAA Act) apply to all advertisements “including social media.” The guidance aims to provide “a basis for voluntary compliance with the FAA Act and the TTB advertising regulations with regard to social media, both in terms of required mandatory statements and prohibited practices or statements.” TTB defines social media outlets as social network services, video sharing sites, blogs, microblogs, forums or comment sections on websites, apps for mobile devices, and links and quick response codes. Applicable to advertisements for wine, distilled spirits and malt beverages, the requirements include posting a responsible advertiser name and address and avoiding prohibited statements, including false health…
A recent study has reportedly concluded that while fewer food advertisements overall are shown during U.S. Spanish-language children’s TV programs than during similar English-language programs, “the nutritional quality of food products on Spanish-language channels was substantially poorer than on English channels.” Dale Kunkel, et al., “Food Marketing to Children on U.S. Spanish-Language Television,” Journal of Health Communications, May 2013. Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), the study analyzed 158 Spanish language children’s programs “for [their] advertising content and compared them with an equivalent sample of English-language advertising.” Researchers also evaluated the nutritional quality of the advertised products using a rating system developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) that divides foods into three categories: Go (foods that are “rich in nutrients and relatively low in calories”), Slow (foods that are “higher in fat, added sugar and calories than Go foods”) and Whoa (foods that are…
A recent study has allegedly concluded that food commercials increased brain activity in adolescent viewers regardless of body weight. Ashley Gearhardt, et al., “Relation of Obesity to Neural Activation in Response to Food Commercials,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, May 2013. Researchers with Yale University’s Rudd Center for Policy & Obesity, the University of Michigan and the Oregon Research Institute apparently used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the brain activity of 30 adolescents described as either normal weight (10 participants), overweight (eight participants) or obese (12 participants), who viewed a TV show interspersed with 20 food and 20 non-food commercials. The study’s authors then asked participants “to list five commercials that they had seen during the television program they just viewed to measure top-of-mind recall” and “to rate how much they liked the products/companies featured in the advertisements on a 5-point Likert scale” and “how familiar they were with…
