Food Advertising
The market is responding
Consumers drive markets. A company will only remain profitable as long as it remains relevant to the consumer. There is an unprecedented shift underway as product portfolios of major food and drink companies are moving away from products high in fat, sugar and salt and towards products with higher micro-nutrient contents.
Product innovation, design and reformulation go hand in hand with marketing: companies need to be able to communicate innovations and improvements in order to create consumer awareness and promote consumer uptake. Companies are adapting their marketing practices and overall business strategies – from research and development and product reformulation, to marketing and community-related initiatives – to reflect consumers’ increasing health awareness.1 Market analysts are even rating companies on the basis of their response to the public health challenge and changing consumer demand and providing advice to investors on this basis. For companies, it clearly makes good business sense.
It is clear from the number and content of company initiatives in this field that consumer demand is having a profound impact on the supply chain, and although the process requires time, progress to date is “encouraging”2. Raising awareness of healthy diets and lifestyles and investing in consumer education will be crucial to accelerating the pace of change in both demand and supply.
Accordingly, industry understands that it has a role to play in helping to use advertising as a force for good to communicate the need for healthy lifestyles. Already, the advertising industry has played a central role in public information campaigns around the world3 with over 30 such campaigns being launched in the EU alone. With the EU Platform for Action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health4, the European advertising industry has further demonstrated its willingness to fund, develop and implement social marketing campaigns to promote healthy lifestyles.
Product innovation, design and reformulation go hand in hand with marketing: companies need to be able to communicate innovations and improvements in order to create consumer awareness and promote consumer uptake. Companies are adapting their marketing practices and overall business strategies – from research and development and product reformulation, to marketing and community-related initiatives – to reflect consumers’ increasing health awareness.1 Market analysts are even rating companies on the basis of their response to the public health challenge and changing consumer demand and providing advice to investors on this basis. For companies, it clearly makes good business sense.
It is clear from the number and content of company initiatives in this field that consumer demand is having a profound impact on the supply chain, and although the process requires time, progress to date is “encouraging”2. Raising awareness of healthy diets and lifestyles and investing in consumer education will be crucial to accelerating the pace of change in both demand and supply.
Accordingly, industry understands that it has a role to play in helping to use advertising as a force for good to communicate the need for healthy lifestyles. Already, the advertising industry has played a central role in public information campaigns around the world3 with over 30 such campaigns being launched in the EU alone. With the EU Platform for Action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health4, the European advertising industry has further demonstrated its willingness to fund, develop and implement social marketing campaigns to promote healthy lifestyles.
2. EU Health Commissioner Kyprianou, CIAA Congress, October 2006, words echoed by Deborah Platt Majoras, Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and J. Michael McGinnis, Senior Scholar, Institute of Medicine.
3. In Australia: www.jolively.com, in Canada: www.longlivekids.ca, in NZ: www.moh.govt.nz, in the US: www.smallstep.gov, etc.
