“For your health, do not eat too fat, too sweet, too salty”. Most French people know by heart the health messages attached to advertising for food and drinks in the media, which appeared in 2007. Perhaps a little too much, to the point that they no longer pay enough attention to them and their effectiveness is at half-mast. To overcome 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, or even neurosciences) scrutinized numerous studies on nutritional behavior. They deliver their conclusions to guide attitudes in terms of diet and physical activity.
Reworking health messages
For Inserm, a law is needed to restrict food marketing aimed at children, for example by prohibiting advertising for certain products during prime time for the youngest on television. Concerning 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 companies’ marketing strategies and work to understand the brain mechanisms that lead to certain nutritional behaviors.
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Children insufficiently protected from advertising marketing according to the WHO
