Beware the Blogosphere

Health minister Caroline Flint has called on CAP to extend the new ban on advertising of HFSS food to children under-16 to non-broadcast media according to the Guardian.

Speaking about the new rules for TV advertising, which OfCOM published today she said: “We now look to the Committee of Advertising Practice to put in place similar rules for other media such as cinema, magazines and the internet.

Without wanting to come over all Michael Winner - ‘calm down dear’ - this ain’t going to happen.

OfCOM’s charter specifically makes no mention of the internet or online or any other reference to interactive media. This is because the government is quite happy to let the internet community regulate itself rather than get involved in a legal minefield of which it would not be able to extricate itself – think EU and global regulations, enforcement, cross border disputes etc and you get the picture.

The internet cannot be regulated, that is one of its main pillars.

All Flint’s statement did was get her name in the paper and made it look like she was being ‘tough on fatties, tough on the causes of fatties’ without really doing anything more than blowing hot air.

Statements by people like Flint make great headlines for the media, but won’t make one bit of difference to the strategies of HFSS brand owners who will be looking to continue or ramp up their online activities.

Pepsi don't market to kids according to their PR - so their website featuring Eva Longoria ads obviously won't appeal to boys under 16 then, or girls for that matter who obviously don't idolise celebrities like Longoria.

Nesquik is of course drunk exclusively by mid-thirties males in upper class restaurants and professional working women, not by kids when they come home from school, which would make more sense for their marketing strategy as the Rabbit character on the front page of their website says 'Come on kids, lets go play in the tree house' before leading them off to play online games based on drink flavours.

OK I am being a bit pedantic, they are not marketing their products, they are websites that carry product info, see the difference?

What will be interesting to see is if there is a groundswell of opinion from online users themselves. The only way that marketing of HFSS foods to kids will not happen online is if enough people don’t want it.

Keep your eye on the blogosphere and remember things like the Kryptonite debacle or other blogging mishaps such as Wal-Mart and its RV trip across the US. If HFSS manufacturers get the blogosphere on their wrong side then they really will have a problem.