How British Food Advertising Restrictions Could Lead to Business Success

These rules have caused major anxiety across marketeers, producers and media owners as the changes to the marketing playbook will be significant, and there will be big commercial losses.

At first glance, these new rules feel like a heavy-handed set of constraints on what was once a free-for-all advertising buffet. But, on closer inspection, it may not be all doom and gloom.

The knock-on effect of these new rules may not only encourage brands to produce healthier products for consumers but could also end up motivating brands to produce more effective marketing results in the boardroom.

Here are three marketing actions brands can take in response to the regulations that will stay compliant and could also improve the long-term profitability of the brand. So whether you’re affected by the restrictions or not, tuck in:

Curb short-term binges—build the brand

The U.K.’s ruling bans product-focused food advertising on unhealthy food products. But it doesn’t ban brand advertising per se: “Brand advertising (online and 9pm TV watershed): provided there are no identifiable HFSS products in the adverts, brands can continue to advertise.”

This is an important distinction. Pure-play brand advertising is key to delivering long-term salience, so that branded products within the portfolio are picked when shoppers see them on the shelf. We only need to recall Cadbury’s Gorilla for a reminder of the power of the brand to deliver profitable growth in this category. Everyone remembers the drum-playing gorilla; nobody remembers if there was—or wasn’t—a product shot.

Brand advertising has been sidelined in favor of product-heavy spots which produce addictive short-term sales spikes. But, as the IPA’s report on The Crisis in Creativity points out, this short-termism is creating a rapid demise in overall marketing effectiveness. So whether you operate in the U.K. or not, weaning yourself off product-focused advertising and redressing the balance with an investment in the core brand will produce healthier long-term growth.

Innovate with a sense of urgency 

It’s in our human nature to focus on what is pressing and immediate and push anything else off for another day. Take tech transformation. I would be confident in betting that your company’s digital transformation was more of a response to Covid-19 than it was due to hiring a chief transformation officer five years ago.

The advertising restrictions on HFSS make innovation necessary and urgent. If the only products that can be advertised are healthier products, brands will invest in making healthier products that they are allowed to advertise.

Even if you are not affected by these U.K. restrictions, innovating with a sense of urgency will put you at an advantage in responding to growing consumer demand for healthier treats.

Had the tobacco companies been encouraged to advertise healthier alternatives within their portfolio, or innovated with a sense of urgency, we may have seen the vape revolution come along quicker and led by the innovation departments of big tobacco brands, rather than by start-ups that the big brands then had to dig deep into their own pockets to buy.

Balance paid and owned digital  

The new rulings hit hard on conversion-led digital comms, where the format is arguably more suited to product advertising. However, even in this space, there is a way of working with these restrictions to improve performance. The ban applies to paid channels—but not to owned channels.

In other words, the restriction will not apply to owned media to ensure that brands can continue to talk about their products in the spaces they own.

In a world where pay-to-play growth means brands are having to funnel more and more budget into paid social and digital to maintain expansion, this ruling could be a good turning point for brands to invest more heavily in creating digital platforms and experiences that they own rather than rent.

If these can then be deployed to use data intelligently and build rich, owned audiences, then brands will enjoy the benefit of being able to target consumers with product-led comms when they need to support an urgent need for sales or a new promotion more efficiently.

Clearly these restrictions represent a fundamental disruption to marketing plans and behaving in a compliant manner whilst maintaining growth will be extremely challenging.

However, if the positive side effects of the HFSS restrictions include investing in long-term sustainable brand building, turbocharging new product development and building a more balanced marketing mix between paid and owned, then it may be a medicine we end up being happy to take—with or without a spoonful of sugar.

If You Believe Advertising Works Then Don’t Argue Against the UK HFSS Ad Ban