The Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland has introduced new rules restricting the marketing of ‘junk foods’, with even stricter constraints on targeting children under the age of 15.

Advertising High Fat, Salt and Sugar (HFSS) products has just got much more difficult, with limits on the amount of advertising for such products across media formats, and locations used by children forbidden to run any form of marketing communication for HFSS products.

ASAI has decreed that no more than 33% of available outdoor space can carry HFSS product marketing communications, while for cinema, digital and print media no more than 25% of the available space can carry such promotions.

HFSS marketing communications targeted at children cannot include a promotional offer or a competition and there are restrictions on the use of licensed characters.

Locations primarily used by children will not be permitted to run any form of HFSS marketing communication under the ASAI code.

In Association with

Such settings include crèches, pre-schools, nurseries, family and child clinics, paediatric services, schools, dedicated school transport, playgrounds and youth centres.

The new rules, which come into force on December 1, will be in addition to existing restrictions whereby marketing communications must not denigrate a healthy lifestyle, not encourage unhealthy eating or drinking habits, and must not encourage consumption to take advantage of a promotional offer.

ASAI chief executive Orla Twomey said: “Key industry groups support the implementation of the rules, demonstrating the advertising industry’s continuing commitment to advertising self-regulation. As well as limiting HFSS product advertising, the new rules will alter the nature of how food advertising is seen by children.”

ASAI has acted ahead of new advertising constraints being imposed by government.

The updated code covers commercial marketing communications and sales promotions in all media including digital web, social, mobile, in-game ads, influencer marketing (user-generated commercial content), print, outdoor, radio, TV, leaflets/brochures, SMS/MMS, cinema, and direct marketing.

The ASAI provides a guidance note on the code here.

Figuring out what constitutes junk food will be complicated. One benchmark is the Nutrient Profile Model which comes as an appendix to the code and was developed by the Department of Health in the UK.

Under this system of scoring foods by nutrient content, any food scoring four points or higher, or drinks scoring one or more points, are classified as less healthy and will be subject to the code.