Examination of Witnesses (Questions 620-639)
13 NOVEMBER 2003
MRS CILLA
SNOWBALL, MR
BRUCE HAINES
AND MR
ANDREW BROWN
Q620 John Austin: Can I go back to
the question of the age at which the market is aimed and whether
you are deliberately targeting three to five year-olds or whether
they are just part of the audience that picked up your message?
I think you have said that some of your advertising is clearly
targeted at children. Some of us would find it difficult to attract
the attention or certainly to keep the attention of children.
I would like to ask you as an advertiser what the most successful
campaigns are that you have been involved in where you have targeted
children and why they were successful?
Mr Brown: I do not think I can
answer the question precisely. What we do know, I think, is that
the most popular advertising amongst children is quite often not
for brands with which they are involved. There is a lot of research
that says that the advertisements for Andrex are by far the most
popular amongst children because they just love puppies, but they
really are users of the paper rather than buyers of it. It depends
how you measure that. Kids are very advertising-aware. They are
aware of all kinds of advertisements. If something is funny or
if it involves animals, they will like it as a piece of film,
which is quite different from their being involved with it as
a potential brand. Personally, when I went to JWT and they were
advertising for Smarties, that was quite a young age group, four
or five to about nine, I suppose. A lot of behavioural psychologists
who specialised in understanding children were used in the research
for that, but the target audience for that advertising was always
children when viewing in the presence of their mothers. That was
the way it was defined. I think there are a lot of campaigns now
like that. Children as an audience are notoriously fickle and
quite difficult to advertise to. They have fads and crazes and
so it is very difficult to say what is the most successful campaign.
Mr Haines: I would say, if you
ask me specifically to comment on the CoCo Pops brand, that that
campaign has run pretty much unaltered for the last 18 years.
One would have to say therefore that that would be the definition
of popularity. Successive generations of children who come into
the market find the elements of the CoCo Pops campaign to be highly
attractive.
Q621 John Austin: Did you create
the demand for CoCo Pops?
Mr Haines: Yes, absolutely, for
the brand itself.
Q622 John Austin: And you created
that demand among young children?
Mr Haines: The demand was created
for CoCo Pops amongst young children, certainly.
Mrs Snowball: I think your question
was about how to get children's attention. I sympathise with that
issue going around but particularly in relation to advertising,
it is quite simple and not too scientific. I think children, like
adults, like advertising that they notice. There are an awful
lot of advertising messages out there. They like advertising that
they can remember. They like advertising that is enjoyable and
engaging. I think those rules would probably apply to adults too.
Q623 John Austin: I do not in any
sense think that advertisers are in any way simple. I think is
a very complex process and I think that advertisers, by and large,
are very sophisticated and very clever and able and have enormous
resources. Is there an ethical issue here as far as the underdeveloped
critical faculties of an eight year-old are concerned pitched
against the wealth of money and resources? Is there not an ethical
issue about advertising specifically to children?
Mrs Snowball: There is an ethical
issue and we take our responsibilities incredibly seriously. The
work that we produce for children in all audiences is handled
responsibly to a code of practice that is stringent and that is
applied heart and soul by responsible agencies. To suggest that
promotion of products to children is unethical is to suggest that
these products are a danger to children when they are not.
Mr Brown: I do think codes of
practice are terribly important here. The idea of unrestricted
communication to children I think is something that nobody would
want. It would encourage irresponsible communication. Provided
that codes of practice are adhered to—and in this country
they are and in this country they are also very rigorous, more
rigorous than they are in most Member States and certainly more
rigorous than they are in the States—I think that ensures
that advertisements are managed in content terms in a way that
matches the intellectual development of the children, so that
they cannot be taken advantage of in the way that the question
implies. I agree with you that it is a matter of ethics but we
might have different views about whether it is ethical or not.
I think it is ethical because the industry supports the codes
of practice—and in television they are statutory anyway
but in non-broadcast they are self-regulatory—because one
wants a degree of fairness.
Q624 John Austin: Would you think
that there is an age below which children are simply too vulnerable
to make advertising acceptable?
Mr Brown: Between the ages of
about three ands five children start separating advertising out
from programming. From, five, six, seven, eight and nine they
begin to learn more and more about the persuasive intent of advertising,
so that a three year-old looking at the Teletubbies on the BBC
does not really know whether it is an advertisement or whether
it is a programme, but is perfectly happy to ask their mum for
a Teletubby toy. That selling nature of adverts, the persuasive
nature of advertising, becomes increasingly understood as the
child gets older but they certainly understand advertising is
there to sell them something by about the age of five. That is
a time which coincides with them beginning to make economic decision.
They are beginning to use their pocket money; they are beginning
to try and learn how to choose. I think there is a graduated level
of understanding and it matches the level of economic independence
and action—"independence" is probably too strong
a word but economic development.
Q625 John Austin: Would Mr Haines
agree about the age at which children are able to recognise and
be partial and persuasive?
Mr Haines: That would be my understanding,
reading probably the same research to which Mr Brown is referring,
that at around four or five kids start being able to separate
out what are advertising messages and what is programming.
Mr Brown: It is certainly true
that they do not know the full persuasive influence of advertising
until they are about eight or nine. It is a learning process.
Q626 John Austin: If there was a
period, say on television, when programmes were primarily aimed
at the under-sixes, how would you feel if all advertising was
banned during those programmes in those periods?
Mr Brown: I do not sympathise
with the reasons why because I do not see advertising in that
sense being a social evil in those programmes but if you are talking
about it in the context of obesity, I also do not accept it. I
do think it would probably result in a dramatic reduction in the
quality of programming. It is unreasonable to expect a commercial
broadcaster to invest in programming to attract an audience to
which he is then denied commercial access. He will not do it.
If you look at Sweden, which has a ban on advertising to children,
its television station has the lowest amount of children's programme
in the EU; it is five hours a week. It is produced at a minimum
quantity and quality; it is dreadful.
Q627 John Austin: Do you mean the
content is dreadful?
Mr Brown: The content is dreadful.
Then who are the victims? They are the children without any programmes
being produced for them.
Q628 Chairman: You could argue that
watching less television might mean they are out playing and doing
things and reducing their obesity.
Mr Brown: You could argue that
and if one did argue that, one would expect Swedish children not
to have the same level of obesity as we suffer in the United Kingdom,
and the answer is that they do.
Q629 Dr Taylor: At the risk of exposing
differences in the Committee, I want to come back to pester power.
I think those of us with kids of around the 10 year-old age group
know that if our wife takes them shopping, they come back with
extra things in the trolley that they did not intend to buy. Do
you encourage children to ask their parents for your products?
Mr Haines: We are not allowed
to.
Q630 Dr Taylor: You have been really
quite honest because your code of practice does say, if I can
quote, that advertisements should not exhort children to purchase
or ask parents or others to purchase for them. Abbott Mead Vickers
have been very honest and given us the "Wotsits" brief
and the media strategy brief actually says, when it is looking
for the desired consumer response: "Wotsits are for me. I
am going to buy them when I get the chance and pester Mum for
them when she next goes shopping". Is that within the allowed
limits?
Mrs Snowball: I think in the brief
that you are referring to, the client brief, and in one of our
briefs there is mention of the "pester" word in describing
the target audience, the 10 year-olds who will pester, and all
children do. I think the mention of the words in the brief is
unfortunate. We are not allowed by the code to promote pestering*.
The advertising content that emerged from that brief did not encourage
children to pester, but I think it was an unfortunate word to
use in the brief and we will not do it again.
Q631 John Austin: Good. I am glad
to hear that. To go on to something else, I think in most of the
briefs you mention Popeye and his complete inability to convince
children to eat spinach. I do not think that is a very fair comparison
with advertising. If you were asked to promote spinach or fruit,
how could you make that attractive to kids? Is not the problem
that the foods that you promote are essentially very attractive
and tasty. If the food industry decided that it did want to promote
some of the more healthy foods, if I can call them that, how would
you go about promoting them?
Mr Haines: One of the things is
that in our McDonald's campaign we are already promoting fruit.
Q632 Dr Taylor: And salad?
Mr Haines: And salad, and certainly
fruit is probably the product there of many items which is going
to be directed at children, or more likely to their parents, in
bags. As part of the "happy meals" menu, that has been
incredibly successful. McDonald's since April has become one of
the biggest sellers of prepared food in the country. I think it
became acceptable to children because it was presented in a fun
way; it was presented as part of the menu, part of a diet, and
in the same way that they would expect any of the menu items to
be presented by McDonald's.
Q633 Dr Taylor: Is this in the form
of prepared fruit salad?
Mr Haines: No, it is fresh fruit;
it is cut up and it is in a bag.
Q634 Chairman: Can I turn to the
issue of the involvement of sport and advertising? I follow a
particular sport that some of you may know something about or
nothing about, which is rugby league. Three weeks ago I was at
a match, a Super League Final at Old Trafford, sponsored by Tetleys
because Tetleys sponsor the Super League. Last Saturday, this
Saturday and next Saturday there is a test series for the same
sport sponsored by "Think don't drink and drive". I
am getting some interesting messages through my sport. On the
one hand, you have Tetleys promoting their products and on the
other a completely different argument about one's drinking habits
and driving. We have been talking about the issue of involving
youngsters in sport and you have made the argument that obesity
arises from a range of causes, and I think we all accept that
point. One of the causes that has been put forward very strongly
to this Committee is the way in which we are no longer as physically
active as perhaps we ought to be. Therefore, sport appears to
be a key element in this. Are we not, in the same way as my sport
seems to be giving mixed messages, also giving some very mixed
messages through the attachment of food advertising to sports
stars and sports events in a way that, particularly in terms of
youngsters, must leave them extremely confused? I do not know
whether any of you have any specific experience of the sporting
side. It would be interesting to hear that.
Mr Haines: McDonald's is heavily
involved in a programme working with the national football associations.
They are spending about £16 million over a four-year period
directly into grassroots football. The aim is to create 10,000
new community football coaches over the next four years. I think
the Football Association reckons that this will deliver about
300,000 hours of coaching for about a quarter of a million kids,
and so that is a sponsorship that McDonald's happily does. We
do not actually promote it as such but it is there at the grassroots.
Q635 John Austin: You mention the
Football Association. The Football Association does produce nutritional
advice. It is sponsored by Mars and promotes Snickers, which are
in fact sugar, as we know. Mars are not somehow in it for the
good of the sport, are they?
Mr Haines: I have no idea. I do
not have anything to do with Mars. I have plenty to do with McDonald's.
I can tell you that they are totally committed to helping people
in grassroots football. That has been extremely well received
by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. The Sports Minister
is very much in favour of it, as are the three national football
associations.
Chairman: There has been a bit of back-pedalling
before this Committee on that. They have thought a bit further
about the issue since they agreed to this one.
Q636 John Austin: Your motives and
those of McDonald's are purely altruistic?
Mr Haines: Yes.
Q637 Chairman: Do you not see some
contradiction between the promotion of Walkers Crisps by Gary
Lineker whereby a role model is put forward promoting a product
that some would argue is possibly not the healthiest certainly
in terms of snacking, picking up the point that you have all collectively
argued, and the issue of exercise, which is crucially important
here?
Mrs Snowball: We handle the advertising
for Walkers Crisps with Gary Lineker. We do not attempt to suggest
in the advertising that eating Walkers Crisps will make you fit
and healthy and Gary Lineker is not used in that way in the advertising.
I think your point about mixed messages is an interesting one
because the balance of messages at the moment is skewed in favour
of calories in not calories out. We are all recommending very
strongly that there would be no contradiction whatsoever with
a campaign that was produced by all parties to get kids active,
to get kids moving. I think there is a real case for public education
to get them doing that. Dr Taylor mentioned the thought about
a campaign aiming to get kids to eat more fruit. I am not sure
whether you would ever get kids to eat more spinach, but certainly
I think a role for advertising could very helpfully be addressed
to a campaign to get people to eat more fruit. And I do not think
those messages are contradictory. I think we have to address this
"calories-in/calories-out" balance. The problem is that
the fruit and vegetable producers do not have big or any advertising
budgets. If they did, I think we could do a very good job.
Q638 Chairman: Some of the high profile
sports figures—I have mentioned Lineker, but Beckham, for
example, was involved with Coca-Cola and Pepsi—are they
not somewhat irresponsible in lending their names to products
that have a bearing on this? I am not saying anything other than
that at this stage in our Inquiry. Is it not your role perhaps—because
you have made some important points in respect of the wider issues,
which you mentioned a moment or two ago—to encourage these
people to look again, rather than for these multi-millionaires
being made richer by promoting products that do possibly contribute
to children being unhealthy—and I put it no stronger than
that at this stage? Do you not think that they have a role and
you have a role in perhaps skewing this whole thing in the other
direction completely?
Mrs Snowball: I do not think we
would accept that they are having a role in creating unhealthy
diets.
Q639 Chairman: I am not particularly
into soccer, but there are one or two around the table who might
be. It does encourage kids to buy crisps if they see a football
star who they associate with, who they see on television, promoting
your product. Surely there is a connection there.
Mrs Snowball: There is a connection
at the level—
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