• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, November 20, 2006

"Pathetic." That's how the head of an influential American lobbying group labeled last week's move by junk-food companies to self-regulate. In a Friday interview, Michael Jacobson, the executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said "the real answer will come from Congress," while promising more litigation against individual companies. He pointed to the announcement of government regulation in Britain as a preferable model to failures in the U.S.

"The Council of Better Business Bureaus has proven once again that self-regulation simply doesn't work to protect kids from junk-food marketing," Jacobson said. "The initiative it announced earlier this week is pathetically weak and would result in virtually no change in the status quo."

The CBBB's Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) announced revisions in the Self-Regulatory Guidelines for Children's Advertising, as well as a new Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative to encourage messages promoting healthy lifestyles. Under the new rules, companies are allowed to present half their total advertising as before, while half must promote healthy activities and diets.

But Jacobson objected that "the guidelines for something being nutritious or not are meaningless. For example, all sugary breakfast cereals fit in, and that's 25% of the current kid-vid advertising." Jacobson also charged CARU's standards for ad creative as too lax. "You could have Ronald McDonald riding a bike in the first part--because that's 'healthy'--and then at the end, a bunch of happy kids eating hamburgers."

Jacobson added that any country concerned about its children's health "should take steps like Britain is doing now," referring to last week's announcement from Britain's television regulator that it might ban all junk-food advertising in TV programming targeting children under 16.

The British Office of Communications also said it might ban endorsements by celebrities and cartoon characters in programs targeting kids under 10. British advertisers say they are outraged by these proposed measures.

Jacobson's remarks put him at odds with the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), which praised the CARU revisions and new initiative as "major steps forward" in effective self-regulation of children's advertising. Robert Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA, said that "food and beverage marketers are committing large portions of their annual budgets to promote positive social change."

Under the leadership of Joan Z. Bernstein, a former director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, CARU has pushed for effective industry self-regulation for over a year. In a February interview with MediaDailyNews, Bernstein said self-regulation was the "desirable" process for combating advertising blamed for childhood obesity. She warned that government regulation would likely lead to protracted court battles--which may be tough for junk-food opponents to win in light of First Amendment issues.

Still, Jacobson said "at this point, Congress has to get involved"--noting that the shift to Democratic control will bolster the power of prominent advocates for reform, like Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). He believes election changes make it more likely that Congress will "return to the FTC the authority to issue industry-wide trade regulations"--something the previous Congress refused to do.