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The food and drink industry is being asked to fund an anti-obesity campaign. Will it do any good or will it just be money down the drain? asks Siân Harrington
Imagine Toyota and Ford being told to fund a public campaign to promote the environmental and health benefits of bicycles. Or what about sunbed manufacturers, deckchair suppliers or travel operators that promote holidays in hotter climes being made to dig into their pockets to educate people about the dangers of skin cancer?
Ludicrous? Not when it comes to the food and drink industry and public health campaigns, apparently.
The idea that business should be forced to stump up money to fund public education campaigns is a controversial one, particularly when the Treasury is already generating millions of pounds in tax from many of these businesses.
Yet, a key plank in the Food And Health Action Plan, which explains how government will deliver the nutrition commitments in the Public Health White Paper, is partnership with the industry to execute an obesity campaign.
Indeed, this month the Department of Health should be developing and testing an obesity education campaign, to be followed by a regional pilot in 2006.
The timescale has slipped but the DH confirms this is still its intention. “We have quite a way to go before we launch such a campaign but the plans haven’t changed. Industry has made suggestions and we are considering options. We are working with the industry and discussing how it may contribute,” a spokeswoman says.
But is it the industry’s responsibility to pay for an educational campaign about exercise and healthy eating?
And, more importantly, are these types of campaign the most effective way of getting the message across?
While industry shrinks from saying a public ‘no’ to the first question, there’s obvious frustration behind the scenes at both government’s thinking and its apparent inability to engage with industry constructively.
“Industry will have difficulty putting money into something without knowing what it has signed up to,” says Jeremy Preston of the Food Advertising Unit, pointing out that industry had still not had a response to a letter to the Prime Minister sent back in May 2004 in which it offered to participate in a government-led campaign on healthy eating and lifestyle.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drink Federation Manifesto, launched in September 2004, committed to such a campaign, although it backed off from agreeing to fund it.
“We certainly envisage helping through responding to Tessa Jowell’s challenge to bring our creativity and link with consumers to the party and we have raised the issue with the new management at DH post-election and would be willing to discuss it further,” says Martin Paterson, deputy director general at the FDF.
While stressing that “we will be willing to discuss all possible options”, he adds: “We take the view that persuading food and drink companies to fund any kind of programme that includes demonisation of perfectly safe and respectable products would be a hard sell.”
Paterson says, however, that just adding simple health messages to products on the packaging could have a major impact on consumers’ approach to eating.
Any financial contribution may just be throwing money down the drain, however. For when it comes to the question of whether health campaigns are the most effective way of changing behaviour, the answer is a resounding no, according to Tim Jones, principal at European innovation insight and advisory firm Innovaro. “Cash won’t make any difference - it is not about money, it is about using the most appropriate mechanism to access the target market and most appropriate brands as vehicles to engage consumers,” he says.
The fact is that health messages are four to 10 times less effective than similar-scale consumer campaigns, says Jones.
And the British population is notoriously cynical when it comes to government, having little respect and treating nanny-state messages with derision.
“Ability to change behaviour is very slow. Looking at smoking, teenage pregnancy, drink driving and Aids, it is clear that changing behaviour on public health has so far had mixed results,” he says.
Preston agrees. “At large, government campaigns have worked pretty well, but it has taken many years for people’s behaviour to change. A short-term behavioural change campaign communicating how to live a healthy lifestyle is well-intentioned, but it won’t have a long-term impact.”
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, four in five deaths under the age of 75 are attributable to circulatory disease, cancer and respiratory illness, according to National Statistics. And you would have to come from Mars not to know that factors such as exercise, smoking and diet play some role in virtually all of these - yet many people still do not, or cannot, make healthy choices.
Even the prime minister’s Strategy Unit acknowledges this. A paper from the unit (Personal Responsibility and Changing Behaviour: the State of Knowledge and its Implications for Public Policy, February 2004) states that: “Several decades of research have conclusively shown that knowledge alone fails to change behaviour.
“Despite this, health promotion messages still tend to focus heavily on knowledge rather than other aspects of persuasion that have been shown to be more important, such as other people’s attitudes.”
And when it comes to health matters such as obesity, there are powerful psychological forces in play that make it even harder. People tend to be disinclined to change behaviour for a long-term gain in health.
As the Strategy Unit paper says, rather the burger today then an extra year tomorrow. People are also disinclined to give up current satisfaction - as in, say, smoking - for a potential gain such as feeling fitter. So does the food industry have any role to play in helping government hit its target of halting the year-on-year rise in obesity among children under the age of 11 by 2010? FAU’s Preston thinks so.
“The food and drink advertising industry has always argued that the best way to tackle rising levels of childhood obesity is through a holistic behavioural change campaign that informs and encourages people to live healthy and active lifestyles, which must include a look at sport,” he says.
“This campaign would need to be truly motivating and inspirational - something that will strike a chord for a call to action from large proportions of the people who see it. The advertising agencies are well versed in this kind of campaign, since many have been involved with previous government campaigns.”
Paul Jackson, chief executive of ad agency Ogilvy & Mather London, agrees. “If you know who’s at risk - say, from diabetes - targeted campaigns through the likes of direct mail, the internet and PR work best. But it’s often difficult to identify exactly who is at risk from what, especially given the number of health scares we’ve seen,” he says.
“That’s why we believe that broad-scale, government-funded public health education through TV, press or posters remains very worthwhile. Increasingly, however, I think we will see brands getting more involved and playing a role in tightly targeted specialist campaigns, as, for example, Nestlé Nutrition has started to do in certain areas.”
Jones adds: “There are lots of good intentions but no co-ordination. Brands all want to play in this debate, but there needs to be some choreography rather than merely pumping money into media. There is the danger of government spending 20 times the amount for 20% less impact.”
And a final word of warning - brand and government communication don’t always mix well.
The last time a major food company got a ministerial nod for a social marketing campaign, it backfired with a bang.
The nod was from minister of sport Richard Caborn. And the brand was Cadbury, with its Get Active campaign.
Media campaigns
>>How effective are public health drives?
The Health Development Agency explored the effectiveness of public health campaigns last year. It pointed to a number of areas in which mass media campaigns have changed people’s behaviour, notably a controlled trial of a TV ad campaign in central and northern England that reduced smoking prevalence by 1.2% over 18 months. However, while there are numerous examples of where such campaigns increase awareness - sensible drinking, Aids, folic acid and the 1990s Active for Life campaign, for example - the evidence that they are successful in changing behaviour is less robust.
The HDA concluded that media could be an effective tool in health promotion, given the appropriate circumstances and conditions. However, media-based campaigns have only limited successes in changing deeply rooted cultural and social norms. A more effective alternative appears to be twinning information campaigns with targeted lifestyle coaching among key population groups, such as the preparation and cooking of healthy meals or exercise.
According to Innovaro’s Tim Jones, the best time to influence behaviour is between the ages of seven and 11. “Just look at British Nuclear Fuels - 20 years ago it focused education on kids to get their attitude to change and start to consider nuclear as clean fuel.
“Now today’s young adults have a completely different view of nuclear fuel than the older generation.”
He believes that to succeed in halting the rise in obesity, government needs to work with appropriate brands such as Kraft, CBeebies, Nike and PlayStation for children, and Virgin, Zara and EMAP teen magazines for young women, for example.
Imagine Toyota and Ford being told to fund a public campaign to promote the environmental and health benefits of bicycles. Or what about sunbed manufacturers, deckchair suppliers or travel operators that promote holidays in hotter climes being made to dig into their pockets to educate people about the dangers of skin cancer?
Ludicrous? Not when it comes to the food and drink industry and public health campaigns, apparently.
The idea that business should be forced to stump up money to fund public education campaigns is a controversial one, particularly when the Treasury is already generating millions of pounds in tax from many of these businesses.
Yet, a key plank in the Food And Health Action Plan, which explains how government will deliver the nutrition commitments in the Public Health White Paper, is partnership with the industry to execute an obesity campaign.
Indeed, this month the Department of Health should be developing and testing an obesity education campaign, to be followed by a regional pilot in 2006.
The timescale has slipped but the DH confirms this is still its intention. “We have quite a way to go before we launch such a campaign but the plans haven’t changed. Industry has made suggestions and we are considering options. We are working with the industry and discussing how it may contribute,” a spokeswoman says.
But is it the industry’s responsibility to pay for an educational campaign about exercise and healthy eating?
And, more importantly, are these types of campaign the most effective way of getting the message across?
While industry shrinks from saying a public ‘no’ to the first question, there’s obvious frustration behind the scenes at both government’s thinking and its apparent inability to engage with industry constructively.
“Industry will have difficulty putting money into something without knowing what it has signed up to,” says Jeremy Preston of the Food Advertising Unit, pointing out that industry had still not had a response to a letter to the Prime Minister sent back in May 2004 in which it offered to participate in a government-led campaign on healthy eating and lifestyle.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drink Federation Manifesto, launched in September 2004, committed to such a campaign, although it backed off from agreeing to fund it.
“We certainly envisage helping through responding to Tessa Jowell’s challenge to bring our creativity and link with consumers to the party and we have raised the issue with the new management at DH post-election and would be willing to discuss it further,” says Martin Paterson, deputy director general at the FDF.
While stressing that “we will be willing to discuss all possible options”, he adds: “We take the view that persuading food and drink companies to fund any kind of programme that includes demonisation of perfectly safe and respectable products would be a hard sell.”
Paterson says, however, that just adding simple health messages to products on the packaging could have a major impact on consumers’ approach to eating.
Any financial contribution may just be throwing money down the drain, however. For when it comes to the question of whether health campaigns are the most effective way of changing behaviour, the answer is a resounding no, according to Tim Jones, principal at European innovation insight and advisory firm Innovaro. “Cash won’t make any difference - it is not about money, it is about using the most appropriate mechanism to access the target market and most appropriate brands as vehicles to engage consumers,” he says.
The fact is that health messages are four to 10 times less effective than similar-scale consumer campaigns, says Jones.
And the British population is notoriously cynical when it comes to government, having little respect and treating nanny-state messages with derision.
“Ability to change behaviour is very slow. Looking at smoking, teenage pregnancy, drink driving and Aids, it is clear that changing behaviour on public health has so far had mixed results,” he says.
Preston agrees. “At large, government campaigns have worked pretty well, but it has taken many years for people’s behaviour to change. A short-term behavioural change campaign communicating how to live a healthy lifestyle is well-intentioned, but it won’t have a long-term impact.”
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, four in five deaths under the age of 75 are attributable to circulatory disease, cancer and respiratory illness, according to National Statistics. And you would have to come from Mars not to know that factors such as exercise, smoking and diet play some role in virtually all of these - yet many people still do not, or cannot, make healthy choices.
Even the prime minister’s Strategy Unit acknowledges this. A paper from the unit (Personal Responsibility and Changing Behaviour: the State of Knowledge and its Implications for Public Policy, February 2004) states that: “Several decades of research have conclusively shown that knowledge alone fails to change behaviour.
“Despite this, health promotion messages still tend to focus heavily on knowledge rather than other aspects of persuasion that have been shown to be more important, such as other people’s attitudes.”
And when it comes to health matters such as obesity, there are powerful psychological forces in play that make it even harder. People tend to be disinclined to change behaviour for a long-term gain in health.
As the Strategy Unit paper says, rather the burger today then an extra year tomorrow. People are also disinclined to give up current satisfaction - as in, say, smoking - for a potential gain such as feeling fitter. So does the food industry have any role to play in helping government hit its target of halting the year-on-year rise in obesity among children under the age of 11 by 2010? FAU’s Preston thinks so.
“The food and drink advertising industry has always argued that the best way to tackle rising levels of childhood obesity is through a holistic behavioural change campaign that informs and encourages people to live healthy and active lifestyles, which must include a look at sport,” he says.
“This campaign would need to be truly motivating and inspirational - something that will strike a chord for a call to action from large proportions of the people who see it. The advertising agencies are well versed in this kind of campaign, since many have been involved with previous government campaigns.”
Paul Jackson, chief executive of ad agency Ogilvy & Mather London, agrees. “If you know who’s at risk - say, from diabetes - targeted campaigns through the likes of direct mail, the internet and PR work best. But it’s often difficult to identify exactly who is at risk from what, especially given the number of health scares we’ve seen,” he says.
“That’s why we believe that broad-scale, government-funded public health education through TV, press or posters remains very worthwhile. Increasingly, however, I think we will see brands getting more involved and playing a role in tightly targeted specialist campaigns, as, for example, Nestlé Nutrition has started to do in certain areas.”
Jones adds: “There are lots of good intentions but no co-ordination. Brands all want to play in this debate, but there needs to be some choreography rather than merely pumping money into media. There is the danger of government spending 20 times the amount for 20% less impact.”
And a final word of warning - brand and government communication don’t always mix well.
The last time a major food company got a ministerial nod for a social marketing campaign, it backfired with a bang.
The nod was from minister of sport Richard Caborn. And the brand was Cadbury, with its Get Active campaign.
Media campaigns
>>How effective are public health drives?
The Health Development Agency explored the effectiveness of public health campaigns last year. It pointed to a number of areas in which mass media campaigns have changed people’s behaviour, notably a controlled trial of a TV ad campaign in central and northern England that reduced smoking prevalence by 1.2% over 18 months. However, while there are numerous examples of where such campaigns increase awareness - sensible drinking, Aids, folic acid and the 1990s Active for Life campaign, for example - the evidence that they are successful in changing behaviour is less robust.
The HDA concluded that media could be an effective tool in health promotion, given the appropriate circumstances and conditions. However, media-based campaigns have only limited successes in changing deeply rooted cultural and social norms. A more effective alternative appears to be twinning information campaigns with targeted lifestyle coaching among key population groups, such as the preparation and cooking of healthy meals or exercise.
According to Innovaro’s Tim Jones, the best time to influence behaviour is between the ages of seven and 11. “Just look at British Nuclear Fuels - 20 years ago it focused education on kids to get their attitude to change and start to consider nuclear as clean fuel.
“Now today’s young adults have a completely different view of nuclear fuel than the older generation.”
He believes that to succeed in halting the rise in obesity, government needs to work with appropriate brands such as Kraft, CBeebies, Nike and PlayStation for children, and Virgin, Zara and EMAP teen magazines for young women, for example.
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