U.K. Junks Kid Junk Food Ads
This just in, from the land of chip butties (french fries and butter sandwiches) and spotted dick (we don't know what this is nor do we want to).
From now on, U.K. youth must learn about the joys of junk food without the benefit of advertising. Anywhere. Marketers, already reeling from the recent U.K. ban on TV junk food ads, must now face up to a near-total blackout on kid junk food ads in magazines, the Internet, newspapers, billboards and cinema, courtesy of the industry's self-regulatory body. Only fresh fruit and vegetables have been spared.
Our favorite part of the story is this excerpt from the statement announcing the ban:
These comprehensive new rules are designed to help protect children's health while still allowing advertisers an appropriate degree of freedom to promote their products.
We guess "appropriate" is a Britishism for nada, zero, zilch. Happily for advertisers, it's still a mecca for fat food ads across the pond, where the average kid sees between 30 and 50 hours of TV food ads each year, 90 percent for junk food.
U.K. Junk-Food-Ad Ban Expands Beyond TV [AdAge]
Kids see hours of fat food TV ads [SFGate.com]
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