Marketing’s Role in Healthier Lifestyle Choices
With almost two-thirds of adults in England either overweight or living with obesity, it raises the question of whether food and drink marketing professionals have a responsibility to promote healthier lifestyle choices to consumers. This topic was covered in S2 E6 of the Agri Food Comms-Cast, raising many questions around the role food producers have in actively marketing healthier food choices.
There’s nothing processed or artificial about the meat, dairy, veg and fruit produced to some of the highest standards in the world by our British farmers. However, conveying the ‘better for you’ message more widely is often problematic, especially when competing against FMCG brands with vast budgets to promote highly processed products.
A 2019 independent report by Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, found a 19% increase in overweight children aged 10-11 in 2017/18 compared to the early 90s*. This trend threatens children’s health and places unnecessary pressures on an already stretched NHS. Should food and drink marketing professionals promote healthy lifestyle choices ?
Innovative Campaigns for Healthier Eating
As covered in a previous podcast the ‘Veg Power’ campaign returned to our televisions to promote healthier eating among primary school children. This month’s podcast guest, food campaigner and crossbench member of the House of Lords, Baroness Rosie Boycott, also Chairs the Board of the Veg Power initiative. She explained the significance behind the ‘Eat Them to Defeat Them’ campaign and how a child-friendly marketing approach helped increase vegetable consumption in households and schools.
The UK government’s announcement of an obesity strategy is a positive step. This directive aims to halve the number of children living with obesity by 2030. Strategic marketing measures, such as restricting adverts for high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) products before 9pm and limiting unhealthy product promotions in retailer environments, seek to stimulate healthier lifestyle choices and reduce overconsumption of unhealthy products among children.
But this isn’t just a UK issue
Our second podcast guest, marketing guru and host of the US-based Gooder podcast, Diana Fryc, shared similar experiences from the US. She explained the impact of good communication strategies on the food decisions in the US and referenced examples of marketing healthier food choices from big-name brands such as McDonalds.
Diana also highlighted how Covid-19 has influenced consumers’ purchasing habits as pre-prepared meal-kits offering healthier options have really taken off. The question now is, as things return to normal, will marketing professionals have to work harder to maintain these sales or will people revert to pre-Pandemic bad habits?
Can a generation of fast-food, take-away fanatics be influenced by society’s marketing professionals? Well-known brands certainly have the resources to guide consumer habits. Surely, they should take this opportunity to educate the public about having a more balanced diet and encourage them to introduce more natural produce into their diets. It’s a challenging but important subject with many questions to answer. One thing we do know through our experience in the agri-food sector is that targeted messaging and creative thinking from our ‘straight from the farm’ producers, can have a positive impact on the sales of natural, healthy food and drink.
*Davies, S.C. Time to Solve Childhood Obesity, Department of Health Social Care 2019
