
The current Summer of Sport has focussed attention not just on the world of sports advertising in general but the moral and legal aspects of tie ups with products that are HFSS (High Fat, Sugar, and Salt). This includes sweets, soft drinks, biscuits, bakery products, snacks and cereals.
This is not a new conflict. Over the past few years, public concern over obesity and general health has brought the issue of advertising HFSS products to the attention of politicians, and the regulators such as the ASA. The current view is that controls in this area have been too loose and not specific enough. Tighter regulation is needed and has been drafted via the HFSS Regulations 2022 bill whose full implementation has now been delayed until October 2025. With the funding of sports events by HFSS brands, being part of this regulation, there is a risk that sport will have to consider its future without the benefit of the large sponsored deals that these brands have been signing in the past. We risk taking funding away from events that desperately need it.
Brands bringing events to life
The planned rules will take aim at the long-standing sponsorship deals between sports teams and events, and HFSS products.
Coca-Cola has been a sponsor of the Olympics since 1928 – it’s embedded into the fabric of the event. Other long term partnerships are Red Bull and Formula 1, and Robinsons and Wimbledon. These partnerships are an integral part of the sport and a key part of the funding that keeps these sports alive. Not only do they put hard cash into the events, but the supporting on pack offers and prize promotions bring the events to the attention of millions and provide useful ticket and merchandise income.
These types of campaigns help bring these large, geographically distant events to life. The team at PromoVeritas has been working with ASOS to give away hundreds of England shirts and an on-pack offer for Budweiser as part of their support for the Euros, and Corona as part of their sponsorship for the Olympics. From this, we can see that these types of promotions can make a real impact on community engagement and fan support as well as creating memorable experiences.
Brands should be allowed continued sponsorship of sporting events and regulation should be strategic and focused on social media marketing campaigns, which directly target underaged individuals.
The detriment of removing sponsorship
In my opinion, an outright ban, criminalising the brand sponsorship deals that currently underpin many sports would obviously prove detrimental for both the advertising and sporting industries. Although Sponsorship is typically only about 6%[1] of a brand’s marketing spend in total, it provides a vast sum – over $60billion worldwide and over £1billion in the UK alone[2]. Much of this will come from HFSS products.
With numerous sporting bodies such as the Commonwealth Games and the RFU facing financial hardship – by removing sponsorship the Government risks putting their future in jeopardy and creates a reliance on increasing the price of tickets and monopolistic TV rights deals.
Finding the correct balance
That is not to say there should be no control. Just as with alcohol, there should be some protections, particularly when it comes to advertisements that are directly targeted at children. Finding the right balance is essential. A blanket ban on the advertisement of these products will have a detrimental effect across the industry and is unlikely to have much of a positive impact on non-HFSS products. So called ‘healthy’ products, such as fresh fruit, have nowhere near the marketing budgets of the big brands. A simple blanket ban will prove ineffective and difficult to enforce in practice. What is needed is a targeted approach, one that controls access to under 16’s via all media, including social media and online, and restricts the messages of these HFSS brands and perhaps includes a Health Warning. Restricting the way in which the young access and gain exposure to these advertisements is smarter regulation.
Taking a pragmatic approach
Brand teams are not stupid, they do not spend vast amounts of money on sponsorship deals for no reason. The expectation is a return on investment – either directly, via an immediate increase in sales of the product, eg via stadium ‘pouring’ rights. Alternatively, the indirect benefit which would be a net increase of sales via regular retail sales channels as well as the impact of brand affiliation and awareness through association with the sportsmen and women or the event itself.
Despite these positive impacts for brands, a correlation between the advertisement of HFSS products and obesity is unproven. Therefore, the implementation of a blanket ban on HFSS products is likely to be ineffective at protecting children’s consumption of HFSS products. A stadium banner advert is not going to be the sole trigger for a teen, or an adult, to rush out and buy that HFSS brand ‘ I’ve seen it for three seconds at Wembley, I must buy it now….!’. Instead, we should be looking at the source of the majority of a teenager’s media exposure – 91 percent of 15 to 16-year-olds using social media. If we were to regulate these areas- Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc, – it may well be a more effective tool to combat the issue.
Steps in the right direction
Ultimately, directly banning the sponsorship of HFSS and alcohol products at sporting events will fail to achieve the proposed goal of regulating exposure to underaged individuals.
The industry has already implemented a number of effective restrictions covering both HFSS and alcohol marketing. Under ASA rules, alcohol brands are no longer allowed to be shirt sponsors and gambling brand logos cannot appear on “small” sizes of replica shirts, i.e. for kids. In addition, the parts of the HFSS regulations that have been introduced already, now forbid in-store off-shelf displays of HFSS products and those parts yet to be introduced ban the advertising of HFSS products before 9pm on both regular TV and streaming channels. This will further limit options and reduce visibility to those under 16. These controls have been accepted by the industry and will therefore be universally accepted and provide a viable way of regulating HFSS and alcohol marketing. On the flip side, a direct ban on sports sponsorship will cut the feet out from under a number of sporting institutions that are already struggling – depriving them of essential funds that they rely on to survive and depriving a large percentage of the population from the very activities that can promote good health and happiness.
[1] Whitman Howard Equity Research
[2] Kolah, A. (2015). Improving the Performance of Sponsorship
Author: Jeremy Stern, CEO, PromoVeritas, the marketing compliance specialists.