‘Who’s deciding what’s bad for us?’: Dee Madigan rails against junk food ad bans
Advertising expert Dee Madigan used the closing moments of the Outdoor Media Association’s conference in Sydney on Thursday to rail against the pending ban on junk food advertising.
From July, advertising for junk food will not be permitted on Adelaide public transport, with calls for the Albanese government to enforce a nationwide ban.
The Greens have repeatedly called for any such ban to be extended to television, radio, and online advertising. The product categories under fire include chocolate, lollies, confectionary, desserts, ice creams, soft drinks, processed meats and chips.
Dee Madigan
Madigan has worked on over 20 election campaigns, and was creative director for Anthony Albanese’s two federal campaign wins. She said the proposed bans weren’t just inconsistent, but insulting.
“What’s the difference between, say a Filet-O-Fish and a Tim Tam?” she asked conference attendees. “Why can you advertise one and not the other? Arnold’s employs 4,000 people through the Australia and Asia Pacific region. What would it do to their business if we can’t advertise those?
“What about orange juice? It’s got a lot of sugar. You know, even fructose, it’s natural sugar – not particularly good for you. At what point can we stop advertising that?”
Madigan stressed she wasn’t talking about direct advertising to children.
“I’m talking about a different thing entirely. I’m talking about advertising to grown-ups.”
During the week, the Australian Association of National Advertisers slammed the “blanket ban” in Adelaide, saying it simply doesn’t work in practice.
“As it stands, this policy bans all processed meats, which means a simple ham salad sandwich can’t be advertised.” AANA CEO Josh Faulks said.
Faulks noted that the ban, as it stands now, could impact advertising with incidental appearances of junk food.
“An ad celebrating the anniversary of a children’s charity, which depicts a child with a birthday cake, would be banned,” he points out.
Banned!
Madigan also questioned the motives behind the decision-makers.
“I’m a little bit careful about who’s deciding what’s bad for us and what’s not,” she explains, pointing to the low-fat trend of American food production in the 1980s.
“We need to eat low-fat food! Obesity’s climbing! They brought in all this low-fat food and obesity kept going up and up and up and up – because to reduce the fat, they increased the carbs and sugar.”
It’s a slippery slope, she reasoned.
“Do we start to ban all things that aren’t good for us? I mean, Sky News would be gone in a second,” she joked. “And even I don’t want that.”
“I’m an adult and I’d like to live in a world that treats me like one. So a strong industry governance is more important than ever.”
Madigan says the pending advertising ban serves as an important reminder that “the role of OMA is not just to drive innovation, but to protect and guide out-of-home through best practices.
“You guys need to work together against this.”
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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Get banning gambling ads first
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London’s ban on junk food ads on transport reduced sales by 7%, and saved the health and welfare system an estimated $554 million, thanks to reduced diabetes and heart disease.
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Ad Execs. Ad execs should decide what’s good for all. What they don’t know isn’t worth knowing.
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Ahh yes, the people who make a lot of money from products that cause disease and early death, destroy families and communities, overburden health and social systems, and undermine economic productivity are best placed to decide what people should see and what preferences they have – they’ve done wonderfully up to now.
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Dee’s comments are 100% correct.
Simple as that.
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This is akin to saying let’s not stamp out the obvious fraud because the people conducting the less obvious fraud are still getting away with it.
Dee’s strawman about the 80’s low-fat trend is sloppy and disingenuous. @Jane Doe nails it. Very luckily for us, we have an excellent socialised medical system. But it is already strained, against projections of much growth in demand.
We can reduce that strain by being healthier; preventative rather than dealing with symptoms. That comes with both a nutritional diet and regular exercise. A pro-active and holistic approach, not a reverse-engineering pill. This policy is just one facet to that end.
If the government can help limit our discretionary whims in this regard without trampling on our fundamental liberties, then that’s good governance. It’s not as if people are waiting for the ad break, and then rage at the imposition on their freedoms when they don’t see a junk food ad.
Her specious logic places Dee with such fruitloops as the Food Neutrality expert insisting that to criticise the nutrition of a donut is class-ist, and the Breakfast Foods CEO welcoming the growth of cereal consumed at dinnertime as a cost-effective meal alternative. Maybe she should just stick to overlaughing at Wil’s prompts.
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