Fast Food Advertising - Regulation and Criticism

Regulation and Criticism

One of the main areas of regulation facing fast food companies is the advertising of "junk food" to children. In the United Kingdom, the Children's Food Bill is intended to highly regulate the advertising of such food aimed at children, and many other countries are looking to introduce strict limitations on fast food advertising. Talks between the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the fast food companies were initiated to work together in an effort to improve children's diets, though Burger King withdrew from the discussions.

Some organizations have called for the watershed to apply to various unhealthy food, including fast food. In June 2006, the FSA called for laws to prevent such food from being advertised on television before 9pm. They also called for the disassociation of television and film characters from fast food and stopping celebrities from appearing in such advertisements. The impact of such campaigns is often denied by the fast food companies and the television networks that carry their advertisements. Some networks have also said that tighter regulations would reduce advertising income and that would have a negative impact on the quality of children's programming. In Sweden all advertising aimed at the under-12s is banned, including fast food adverts.

Faced with stricter TV, radio and print regulation, many fast food companies have started making use of Internet advertising to reach their customers.

The accuracy of the images of food used by the fast food companies is regularly called into question. The actual product is often described as being of poorer quality to that represented in the image, as highlighted in Alphaila.com's Ads vs. Reality project.

On 3 June 2004 KFC withdrew American television commercials claiming that "fried chicken can, in fact, be part of a healthy diet" after reaching a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.

Fast food advertising is often complained about to advertising authorities, with members of the public most usually claiming that the wording is misleading. Not all the complaints are upheld. For example, between 11 September 2002 and 24 March 2004 the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK investigated complaints about six McDonald's advertisements, with two of them being upheld. The ASA used one of the upheld complaints as a case study.

In 2006 the European Union passed a new law regarding the labelling of foods - any food with a nutritional claim (such as "low fat") must also highlight that it is high in something else (such as "high salt") if that is the case. While fast food is often not given a traditional label, this may have an impact on advertising.

In November 2006, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) announced that it would ban television advertisements for junk food before, during and after television programming aimed at under-16s in the United Kingdom. These regulations were originally outlined in a proposal earlier in the year. This move has been criticized on both ends of the scale; while the Food and Drink Federation labelled the ban "over the top", others have said the restrictions do not go far enough (particularly due to the fact that soap operas would be exempt from the ban). On 1 April 2007, junk food advertisements were banned from programmes aimed at four to nine-year-olds. Such advertisements broadcast during programmes "aimed at, or which would appeal to," ten to fifteen-year-olds will continue to be phased out over the coming months, with a full ban coming into effect on 1 January 2009.

In Malaysia, fast food advertising during children's programmes was outlawed in 2007. However, it did not stop the fast food companies from advertising their products. Since the ban, McDonald's no longer advertise Happy Meal on other media except in their restaurants and fast food advertising is mainly broadcast during prime-time (in Malaysia, prime time starts from 8:30 pm to 12:00 am).