REGULATORY TRENDS IN FOOD ADVERTISING

Advertising is part of the cultural universe of industrialized societies or consumption estimated that a person receives on average 3,000 daily messages prompting you to buy all sorts of products or services. In the food industry, advertising is essential to settle the corporate reputation of the corporate brand manufacturer. Your employment under various channel conditions including eating habits, acquired through direct experience of the consumer with food, food availability, role modeling, social status, symbols of identity and cultural traditions.

In turn, the phenomenon of Food Transculturación or adoption of external models in local consumption habits is causing, for example, abandoning the Mediterranean diet, leading to several public health problems. The advertising market has historically been responsible for this problem, mainly due to lack of co-ordinated by the diverse stakeholders in the field of healthy nutrition and advertising control, coupled with the lack of adequate legislation policies.

Fortunately, our country is currently with the EU at the forefront of the legal system in this respect, in obedience to a growing consumer demand: food should not only meet the nutritional needs, they must also have healthy properties, result of a production process environmentally friendly and come from companies producing, processing and distributing socially responsible and committed.

The Spanish legislation, both in the General Advertising Act and the Food Safety and Nutrition, along with regulations for specific products (dietary, supplements, organic, alcoholic beverages, etc.), refers directly to a commercial communication of food to be loyal, not misleading, inclusive, truthful and responsible.

In addition, agencies such as Autocontrol and various consumer groups, are achieving industry awareness to the problem of obesity, supporting the NAOS prevention strategy promoted by the Ministry of Health, which has resulted in the PAOS Code (Code Self-Regulation in Food Advertising aimed at children, Obesity Prevention and Health), signed by 27 of the largest multinational food companies that have decided to abide by their 25 self-imposed ethical standards voluntarily, but can lead to sanctions up to 180,000 euros for infringing.

Thus, the industry member whose posts should avoid deceptive presentations about product features or benefits of their consumption, avoid promoting or present eating habits or unhealthy lifestyles, an ethical standard of protection set the child regarding advertising practices and opportunities for dissemination, etc.

The data require the implementation of PAOS are alarming: In Spain, obesity has a high rate in the group aged between 6 and 12 years, just over 16%. Moreover, about 80% of advertising aimed at children of foods with high content in polyunsaturated fats and sugars. Indeed, one of the aspects autoregulativos directly refers to the need to control TV advertising in children's programming, in addition to turning schools into free advertising environments.

The ICC (International Chamber of Commerce) considers that the advertising of foods are best regulated by means of the self within a legislacioón to protect consumers from misleading information. They argue that the application of self-regulation in food advertising should be legal, decent, honest and strictly true.

So, the food industry has reacted to avoid a much more severe mandatory legislation on advertising their products. Companies take responsibility veto advertising unhealthy products aimed at children or introducing more healthful and applying corporate social responsibility in their communication strategies. The PAOS born as a clear preventive vocation, the objectives to be achieved will depend on their efficacy and autorregulativa runs applied across the industry in order to avoid any risks that might affect the health of consumers. Otherwise, administrations should trigger strict normative regulations, causing an obvious prejudice in the public image of the entire food sector.

+info:

• General Advertising Law: http://www.boe.es/buscar/act.php?id=BOE-A-1988-26156
• Food Safety and Nutrition Law:  http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2011/07/06/pdfs/BOE-A-2011-11604.pdf
• Autocontrol: http://www.autocontrol.es/
• NAOS: http://www.naos.aesan.msssi.gob.es/naos/estrategia/que_es/
•  PAOS Code: http://www.naos.aesan.msssi.gob.es/naos/ficheros/empresas/Nuevo_Codigo_PAOS_2012_espanol.pdf
• International Chamber of Commerce: http://www.iccspain.org/