Purpose – This paper aims to present the problem of obesity and associated ill health in the UK. It seeks to show how marketing by major companies contributes to this problem.Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses the case study of “Terry” to illustrate the issues involved.Findings – This paper finds that life expectancy is predicted to fall in the UK unless action is taken against the growth of obesity. The marketing of fast foods needs to be curtailed.Originality/value – Ten pledges are made to “Terry” to improve his health, pledges that can be applied to the whole nation.
This chapter describes the methodology and findings from a systematic review of research into the impact of food promotion on children's food knowledge, preferences, and behavior. The research was commissioned by the UK Food Standards Agency in an attempt to clarify the influence of food promotion on children's dietary behavior. The review had two main tasks. The first task was to systematically review the extent and nature of food promotion to children. The second and fundamental task of the review was to investigate the effect of commercial food promotion on children. Studies had to address directly the extent and nature of food promotion to children and/or its effects on their food knowledge, preferences, or behavior. Children's food promotion is dominated by television advertising, including advertisements for presugared breakfast cereals, confectionary, savory snacks, soft drinks, and fast-food outlets. Policy action on food promotion should form part of a broader strategy to tackle obesity among young people.
THIS PAPER describes the evaluation of a Scottish environmental health campaign comprising two display stickers promoting food hygiene in food outlet estab lishments. One sticker was designed for customers, the other for staff. They were assessed by interviewing three separate quota samples of butchers, grocers and hotels/restaurants in Strathclyde Region, using a fully structured questionnaire in face-to-face personal inter views. The results indicated that the material was very well received in all groups, especially among butchers, and for the staff sticker. However, some misinterpretations were made of the campaign's objectives, and problems in awareness and distribution occurred. The reasons for this and the implications are discussed.
Smoking levels have not declined among those living in disadvantaged communities in the UK, presenting a major public health concern. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data, this article suggests that core concepts of social marketing provide a meaningful framework for identifying appropriate smoking cessation interventions and policy responses. Understanding the consumer reveals that tobacco meets many needs in the struggle to cope with limited income intensified by poorly resourced local infrastructure and limited opportunities. An almost overwhelming range of threats to cessation includes the impact of disadvantage, strong prosmoking norms and environments, and, unsurprisingly, the tobacco industry's reinforcement of continued smoking. Important opportunities include smokers' underlying wish to be nonsmokers, positive responses to new approaches, and gradual amelioration of problems for which smoking provides a coping mechanism. Finally, what is the meaningful exchange that can be offered to smokers in the challenging quitting process? Better health or more money alone are unlikely to be accepted as realistic benefits. Instead, integrated long-term support is required, reflecting the long-term reinforcement strategies of the tobacco industry. At a macro level, policies address hardship. At a community level, increased resources and training give workers tangible products and greater confidence. At a micro level, smokers need tailored “packages” of support, addressing personal barriers to success.
In the hands of the corporate sector, marketing has turned us into spoilt, consumption-obsessed children who are simultaneously wrecking our bodies, psyches and planet. Given the fiduciary duties of the corporation, notions like consumer sovereignty, customer service and relationship building are just corrosive myths that seduce us into quiescence, whilst furnishing big business with unprecedented power. Corporate Social Responsibility, the ultimate oxymoron, and its country cousin, Cause Related Marketing, are just means of currying favour amongst our political leaders and further extending corporate power. So it is time to fight back. As individuals we have enormous internal strength; collectively we have, and can again, change the world (indeed marketing itself is a function of humankind's capacity to cooperate to overcome difficulties and way predates its co-option by corporations). From the purpose and resilience Steinbeck's sharecroppers ('we're the people – we go on'), through Eisenhower's 'alert and knowledgeable citizenry' to Arundhati Roy's timely reminder about the wisdom of indigenous people 'are not relics of the past, but the guides to our future', there are lots of reasons for optimism. If these talents and strengths can be combined with serious moves to contain the corporate sector, it is possible to rethink our economic and social priorities. The book ends with a call to do just this. This compelling and accessible book will be of interest across the social sciences and humanities – and indeed to anyone who has concerns about the current state of consumer society. It will also be particularly useful reading for those marketing students who'd prefer a critical perspective to the standard ritualization of their discipline.
NE Choices was a major drugs prevention programme which targeted 13 to 16-year-olds in the north-east of England between 1996 and 1999. It had explicit drug use prevention, prevalence reduction and harm minimisation behaviour change objectives. The intervention had everything going for it: strong theoretical underpinnings; a multi-component design, combining a schools intervention with community, media and stakeholder activity; extensive, long term resources (the programme lasted three years plus a one-year pilot and an additional year of follow-up); a comprehensive bank of formative, process and impact evaluations to inform its development and implementation; and a quasi-experimental design to measure its effect on behaviour. But it did not work. Despite consistently and markedly positive formative, process and impact results, it did not change behaviour. This paper examines the lessons that emerge from NE Choices. It begins with a conventional analysis, which suggests a need for relatively straightforward alterations to the intervention, starting at an earlier age, for example, or making the evaluation more rigorous. The paper then looks at some of the intervention's strengths, before taking a more radical perspective, and using learning from social marketing to call for a fundamental rethink of the 'intervention mentality'.
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