The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has said that certain elements of the proposed guidance on media restrictions on advertising for ‘less healthy’ food and drink will need changing, meaning that the details of the HFSS ad ban are subject to further delay.
A spokesperson from the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) has labelled the news as “incredibly disappointing”.
The announcement from the ASA follows legal advice that suggested certain revisions will be needed, in particular for parts of the guidance related to advertising by brands not that does not explicitly refer to or feature products.
For example, the proposed guidance advised adverts featuring branding relating to a range of entirely ‘less healthy’ products would fall outside the scope of the restrictions if there were no depictions or references to a specific less healthy product in the ad.
However, the ASA now consider that the guidance should be more circumspect in this regard.
The law currently makes no reference to brand advertising, but instead applies media bans to adverts for an identifiable ‘less than healthy’ food product. Importantly, it stipulates that a product is ‘identifiable’ if a person in the UK could be reasonably expected to link the advert to that product.
The revised guidance will therefore seek to clarify this.
A revised version of the guidance is now being prepared, which the ASA will lay forth in a public consultation in the coming weeks.
The aim will be to publish the final guidance in the spring, barring any unforeseen developments.
“It’s incredibly disappointing that industry is once again facing delays to the publication of the details we need for the implementation of the food advertising restrictions. Government originally announced a delay to the regulations in 2022 to give industry more time to prepare, but we’re still waiting for guidance to be published and the information that has now been shared is unclear and confusing,” a spokesperson from the FDF told Food Manufacture.
“Government’s intention was for the rules to restrict advertising of less healthy food and drink and that brand advertising should be allowed. The information shared today casts doubt on this, and neither the legislation nor the anticipated regulator’s guidance gives businesses certainty on whether this will be the case. Without clarity on this, and the rest of the guidance, manufacturers don’t have the information they need to properly plan for the regulation coming into force in less than 10 months’ time.
“Food and drink brands typically plan their advertising campaigns 12-18 months in advance, so this lack of detail and potential change to what is in scope will cause a lot of uncertainty and may require businesses to make costly changes to their advertising plans. We urge the government and regulator to provide clarity on this issue as soon as possible.”
