“For your health, do not eat too fatty, too sweet, too salty”. Most French people know by heart the health messages attached to advertising for food and drink in the media, which appeared in 2007. A little too much perhaps, to the point that they no longer pay enough attention to them and their effectiveness is reduced. at half-mast. To remedy this, Inserm (National Institute for Health and Medical Research) has made several recommendations.
Ten experts from different disciplines (marketing, law, economics, psychology, information and communication sciences, and neurosciences) have scrutinized numerous studies on nutritional behavior. They deliver their findings to guide attitudes in terms of diet and physical activity.
Rework health messages
For Inserm, a law would be needed to restrict food marketing to children, for example by banning advertising for certain products during prime time for the little ones on television. Regarding health messages, they would be more effective in full screen at the beginning or at the end of the advertisement, than in their current place, as a banner. They should also appeal to the conscious and unconscious attention of viewers, with messages that are simple, clear, and easy to implement. Pre-testing all communication campaigns would also be necessary to assess their impact before deployment.
For all this, Inserm recommends continuing research in order to better understand the target populations, their expectations and their motivations. We should also analyze the marketing strategies of companies and work to understand the brain mechanisms that lead to certain nutritional behaviors.
To read also
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Children insufficiently protected from advertising marketing according to the WHO
