Henry Dimbleby was in a mischievous mood on stage this week. Speaking at Groundswell Festival alongside former Sainsbury’s CEO Justin King, the author of the National Food Strategy recounted King’s idea to impose a 5% levy on the ad budgets of junk food manufacturers.

His plan was that this would help fund widespread campaigns for healthy eating. “When it comes in, we will call it King’s Law,” Dimbleby smiled.

For healthy food campaigners, it might have sounded like the perfect filler to sit alongside a new government plan to force food businesses to make it easier for customers to buy healthy food, the methods of which have been revealed today.

One individual quick to lend his weight to the idea was former Defra secretary George Eustice, who went on to reveal he was actually in the process of pushing through a very similar policy just as the election was called last year.

“Rather than having a ban on the advertising on so-called unhealthy foods, collect a levy for all that and then use that money to do healthy advertising,” he said.

The sound of three powerful food voices all chiming in to call for higher taxes might sound a few alarm bells in the corridors of major food companies. The money involved after all is vast – Nestlé’s global marketing budget alone is worth several billion pounds every year.

But would it ever work?

Healthy food advertising

The agonising process of getting the relatively restrained pre-9pm ban on HFSS foods across the line suggests that Dimbleby’s proposals must ultimately be considered unlikely. The HFSS ad ban policy has now been delayed three times amid bitter conflict over its implementation, giving a small indication of how any tax raid might go down with the same groups.

Even King sounded a warning alarm this week: “Government’s first instinct is always to tax. Incentivise instead and let capital chase it down.”

And if the government did manage to direct the huge sums into healthy advertising, there are question marks over its potential for success. The 5-a-day mantra is arguably the most successful healthy food campaign there has ever been – but even that has ultimately fallen short, with only 17% of adults achieving the full 5 a day and even those numbers now in decline.

More than nine in 10 adults are aware of the saying and yet opt not to follow it. What could giving more money to “the best ad agencies in the land”, as King suggests, do differently?

One study in the US found that while healthy food labels typically tout health benefits, most people will still prioritise taste in the moment of making that food choice. The researchers found labels which emphasised taste also increased vegetable intake by 29%, compared to health-focused labels.

As Lina Ikonen, an assistant professor of marketing at University of Groningen noted, healthier food options are often wrapped in pale-coloured packaging, unintentionally signalling bland, boring flavour to shoppers.

“Junk food advertisements are great in giving the viewer a sense of how it feels to eat the flavourful burger,” she says. “Healthy food ads – if you happen to come across one – are rarely as enticing.”

Given the opportunity – and the funds – top ad agencies would no doubt fancy their chance.

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