Less Healthy, More Clarity

In January this year, new rules in the CAP and BCAP Codes on advertising “less healthy” food and drink came into force. The headline restriction is straightforward: adverts for an identifiable less healthy product cannot appear on television before 9pm, or as paid-for advertising online at all. What has been much less straightforward, until recently, is working out exactly when a product counts as “identifiable” for these purposes, and when an advert is really just promoting a brand.

Several Advertising Standards Authority rulings have started to fill in that gap. Now two further ASA decisions published today (23 July) add useful data points, one for McDonald's McDelivery and the other for Domino’s Pizza.