Coke ad insists Aspartame is A-OK

Via Scribd

There it is, in all its oddly-centred, fake-ad-looking headline glory. 

I'll quote the body copy in full:

For over 127 years, people have been coming together over Coca-Cola products to refresh, to celebrate, and to enjoy a moment with something they love. One reason why is that people have always been able to trust the quality of our products and everything that goes into them. 

That’s something that will never change. 

But changing with the times and people’s tastes is something we’ve always done. Today, that means offering more great-tasting, low- and no-calorie choices. And while nearly everyone can agree that providing choices to help people manage the calories they take in is a good thing, we understand that some people have questions about the use of low- and no-calorie sweeteners. 

Our use of high-quality, low- and no-calorie sweeteners, including aspartame, allows us to give people great-tasting options they can feel good about. Time and again, these low- and no-calorie sweeteners have shown to be safe, high-quality alternatives to sugar. In fact, the safety of aspartame is supported by more than 200 studies over the last 40 years.* 

Today, we’re proud to offer a wide range of Coca-Cola products that fit different people’s life- styles. Because we believe that when people come together with more choices that are right for them, good things happen. 

For more information, including third-party studies on the benefits and safety of low- and no-calorie sweeteners, go to beverageinstitute.org

*International Food Information Council Foundation. 2011. Everything You Need to Know About Aspartame. Magnuson, B.A., et al. 2007. Aspartame: A safety evaluation based on current use levels, regulations, and toxicological and epidemiological studies. Crit Rev Toxicol. 37: 629_727. Aspartame is safe for use by nearly all populations. The only exception is people born with phenylketonuria (PKU) who cannot metabolize phenylalanine. But, this does not mean aspartame is unsafe for other consumers. 

Ad Age says the campaign will run in USA Today in Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Chicago Tribune. Then again, media buys are just proof it's a real ad. Many more people will see it online.

Ad Age also quotes a Coke news release:

"We believe there is a real opportunity to bring people together to educate them about low- and no- calorie sweeteners. Low- and no-calorie sweeteners offer a great way for people to manage their calories while still enjoying the sweet taste that they love. We understand, though, that some people have questions about these ingredients, especially aspartame. We felt it was important for us to answer these questions and reinforce that these are ingredients people can feel good about."

I'll try not to write anything I could get sued for. I'll just say that, as a parent, I do not believe "diet" soft drinks are a healthy choice for me or for my son, and we will not have them in our house. We promote drinking water as the #1 thirst quencher for him, followed by milk and limited fruit juice. We even allow the occasional sweetened "pop" in the house, but prefer real sugar over corn syrup. That's just us.

Oh, and this is Qing Yang in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine in 2010:

Intuitively, people choose non-caloric artificial sweeteners over sugar to lose or maintain weight. Sugar provides a large amount of rapidly absorbable carbohydrates, leading to excessive energy intake, weight gain, and metabolic syndrome. Sugar and other caloric sweeteners such as high fructose corn syrup have been cast as the main culprits of the obesity epidemic. Whether due to a successful marketing effort on the part of the diet beverage industry or not, the weight conscious public often consider artificial sweeteners “health food”. But do artificial sweeteners actually help reduce weight? 

Surprisingly, epidemiologic data suggest the contrary. Several large scale prospective cohort studies found positive correlation between artificial sweetener use and weight gain.

They didn't claim is was good for you. They just said it was "safe" and that you can "feel good about it". If you want a better look at their arguments and sources, there's a handy infographic at their advocacy site.

As a parting thought, however, I wonder if drawing attention to the issue is going to backfire.

Meanwhile in Canada, cup sizes are increasing rapidly

I'm talking about coffee, pervs. My brother David shared this snapshot of Tim Horton's newly- recalibrated coffee sizes.

The extra large is now 710 ml, or 24 ounces. That's over three cups of coffee in one.

According to City TV:

The change brings Tim Hortons sizes more in line with American chains, that have phased out the 236 mL “small” cups, and competitors including Starbucks, Second Cup and McDonalds.

They are, obviously, responding to customer demand. But is it really a good idea? I've had that much coffee in one sitting before, sure. But I drink mine black. Imagine the amount of cream and sugar it takes to make one of these as sweet and creamy as the traditional "double double" — quadruple quadruple? Quintuple quintuple?

Hey, do what you want with your life. But please don't fool yourself into thinking that getting a coffee like this every day, with the fat and calories that go with it, isn't going to weigh heavily on your health. (While we're at it, I guess we had better recalibrate clothing sizes again too.)

Georgia's "fat kids" campaign: wake-up call or useless guilt trip?

Annie at Fuse Communications sent me a link to this Georgia childhood obesity campaign from Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, asking for my opinion. It's a tough one.



The brutally frank ads target the parents of overweight children, who are thought to be either unaware or in denial about how their children's diet and activity choices affect their health and self-esteem.




According to ABC news:

"Children's Healthcare of Atlanta chose the straightforward approach after its survey of two towns in Georgia found that 50 percent of parents did not know childhood obesity was a problem and 75 percent of parents with obese children did not think their child was overweight."

But here's that defensive processing dilemma, that keeps showing up in social marketing campaigns. Negative portrayals of viewer behaviour tend to make  the target market turn away, rather than mend their ways, and can even backfire.



The issue of parenting is an especially volatile one. Try having a civil conversation about breastfeeding versus bottle feeding, infant male circumcision, or co-sleeping with a random group of parents online. You'll end up with a flamewar.

Diet and fat-shaming is another one of these issues. While parents need to be aware that their obese and/or inactive kids need healthier habits for their own sake, when you criticize someone's parenting you really hit them where it hurts most. I expect this campaign did exactly that.



From the original article:

"Blaming the victim rarely helps," said Dr. Miriam Labbok, director of the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "These children know they are fat and that they are ostracized already."
...
"While guilt and fear are motivators, they have to be meted out with the answer to the situation," Labbok said. "The ads with the children do not offer help to them."
According to health communication experts, successful public health campaigns offer a clear call to action. Labbok says the Georgia ads address the problem, but don't give viewers a clear solution.

So what's the answer? Social marketing theory says positive modelling is the key. But positive modelling takes a long time to be effective. All social change does. It's understandable that Children's Healthcare of Atlanta chose a more confrontational approach, because they can see that it is an urgent public health crisis. But then again, so is smoking (especially around kids), alcohol dependence, and a general lack of concern about buying, cooking and eating healthy food.

None of these problems is going to be solved quickly using the blunt instrument of guilt advertising. All that does is preach to the choir, making impatient activists feel better that something major is being done.

No matter what people tell you, ads can only do so much. This is a job for doctors, nurses, educators and community leaders to take on, full-time, for the next 10 or 20 years. It's complicated, slow, and will not win anyone any awards. But it's what has to happen for real change to occur.

I think Japan has a new slang term for "big ass"

At least, it will when people eat enough "Grand Canyon Burgers" — which tops the patty with cooked egg, mozzarella, Cheddar cheese and steak sauce made with soy and liquid smoke.

In case you're interested, the "Las Vegas" is topped with cheese sauce and more beef (looks like Steak-umms — shouldn't that be the Philadelphia Burger then?) The Broadway has a cream cheese and mustard sauce, and the Beverly Hills is another egg one.

Via Burger Business

Everything wrong with America, in a 2-minute infomercial

My God, I both hope and fear this is real — baby sleepers for adults who never want to get dressed:



That's right. If a Snuggie lacks the total ensconcement in fleece you've always dreamed of, the "Forever Lazy" is your dream outfit.

The URL in the spot is not working, but orderforeverlazy.com is:

"Asleep on the Job Gray"?

There are even testimonials:

"Hey Guys whats up? I just received my first Uni-Lazy or as we refer to it "the sack" today, and it is so awesome that I immediately ordered another one in Camo and Renee ordered another in pink. I took it to work and tried it on for everyone and now they all want one. They know a kick ass idea when they see one. Anyway just a heads up to say how friggin terrific the Uni-Lazy is, now I can finally begin to live like a human being lol. P.S. if you ever need a sales reps up here in Canada we're your guys hahahaha. Thanks for being so Lazy.
- David"

Hey! Wait a sec, David! "Up here in Canada"? I said "America", dammit! Don't be bringing your trapdoor sleepers of the sedentary fatpocalypse up here!

Oh, dear. We're all doomed.

Link via HuffPost.

UPDATE: One of my readers questions whether everything wrong with America can be summarized in one product. I have to give her that. Although if they ever find a way to combine The BackUp and the Forever Lazy into one product, I may yet be proven right.

Throw back some real sugar

On their Facebook Page, Pepsi Canada today announced the January 24th launch of "Pepsi Throwback" a limited-edition offering in a retro can with real sugar.

Does anyone else think this is a branding mistake?

Ever since the big pop brands switched from cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) back in the 80s, many health advocates have claimed that it made the obesity epidemic worse.  The science behind this has been a little dodgy at times, but last year's study on rats at Princeton — which compared weight gain between groups given sugar water compared to groups give watered-down HFCS — found:

"The rats in the Princeton study became obese by drinking high-fructose corn syrup, but not by drinking sucrose. The critical differences in appetite, metabolism and gene expression that underlie this phenomenon are yet to be discovered, but may relate to the fact that excess fructose is being metabolized to produce fat, while glucose is largely being processed for energy or stored as a carbohydrate, called glycogen, in the liver and muscles."

In short, they concluded: "Our findings lend support to the theory that the excessive consumption of high-fructose corn syrup found in many beverages may be an important factor in the obesity epidemic."

The debate will no doubt be ongoing, considering the mighty forces involved: big soda, the U.S. corn lobby, and everyone making a buck on the fact that HFCS is in so many packaged foods. (Look at the label. In Canada, it goes under the alias "glucose-fructose".)

But back to Pepsi. I'm going to assume that this is really a way to test market an HFCS-free formulation without freaking out the corn syrup industry. With the way things are going, it wouldn't be that surprising if HFCS continues to fall out of favour with health-conscious consumers.

But what if this really is just a "limited time offer"? By drawing consumers' attention to the "real sugar" in Pepsi Throwback, they are also drawing attention to the fact that what they've been selling you has something else in it — something less desirable. If I take off my food activist hat, and put back my adman fedora for a moment, I have to point out that this is bad for the overall brand.

Unless they make it a permanent change. Which I really hope they do.

UPDATE: According to The Consumerist, Pepsi in the USA announced that they will continue to produce the sugar version for as long as sales support it. So I can only assume the Canadian strategy is similar.

I resolve...

I really freaking love cheeseburgers. But this campaign for Dangerous Dan's Diner in Toronto — dripping with both irony and grease — has inspired my New Year's Resolutions for 2011:

I resolve to eat healthier, with less meat and more veggies.

I resolve to reduce the amount that I eat,
and increase the quality of ingredients.

I resolve to support healthy and humane farming and
slaughtering practices (as much as I can) in my food purchases.

Ummm... I forgot what this resolution was about.

Happy New Year, everyone. Be safe. Be healthy. Be excellent to each other.

Junk

AdFreak posted this creepy-as-hell PSA intended to combat child obesity in Australia:



I am just as concerned as any parent about the poor eating habits so many people are teaching to their kids. But comparing feeding them junk food to injecting them with... well... junk? It's offensive on so many levels.

He'll soon start mugging people to support his Happy Meal habit.

First of all, the occasional fast food burger is relatively harmless, and does indeed contain some nutrition. Second, heroin addiction is way too serious a social issue to be treated so lightly. Third, as I keep saying, shock and shame advertising is rarely effective in social marketing.

If you're going to call people bad parents for doing something completely ordinary, you are really unlikely to reach anyone who really needs the message. There are better ways to inspire change.

Who is influencing whom?

On the CBC today:

"Children and teens spend about as much time with media as they do sleeping, and the overexposure could take a toll on their health, a new U.S. study suggests.

...

The study, reported in Monday's issue of the journal Pediatrics, showed Americans aged eight to 18 spend more than seven hours per day on average consuming both old media such as TV, movies and magazines as well as new media including internet, social networking sites, video and computer games and cell phones.

...

The study found exposure to the media can make children more prone to:

• Violence — the impact of media violence on real-life aggressive behavior is 0.31 times higher, compared with 0.39 times for the link between smoking and lung cancer.
• Early and unprotected sexual activity, particularly if exposed to pornography.
• Alcohol and tobacco consumption, with exposure to smoking in movies in Grades 5 to 8 predicting the likelihood of starting smoking within eight years.
• Obesity, with possible culprits including the marketing of junk food and fast food and the tendency to eat while watching media.
• Heavy television-viewing — that is, two to three hours a day in early childhood has been linked with attention-deficit disorder during the early school years, though experts disagree about the nature of the connection."

Okay, so I'm in the industry. Of course I'm going to question these findings. Not because they threaten my livelihood in any way (they don't) but rather because they ignore important research done over the past few decades into the science of human nature.

In that time, I've been keenly reading pop evolutionary psychology books by scientists like Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley, Geoffrey Miller and others. And what they have taught me is that people are not simply vessels for culture. They're slaves to much greater forces.

Basically (if I recall correctly) your personality is mostly determined by your genes. Peer influence is what acculturates you and shapes your natural character. And parenting has a small but important influence — which can wreck havoc with the final product if it takes the form of abuse or neglect.

The effects of "Media" don't even enter these discussions. Why is that? Here's where my people come in.

As I mentioned in my blog about body image and advertising on Friday, advertisers give the people what they want. This can be expanded into all media. Movies, TV shows, games, social networks — they only succeed because people vote for them with their time and their wallets.

Today, especially, when consumers have a choice of endless media options with which to waste their time, they have more power than ever before. And it's this element of choice that makes me question these findings:

"The impact of media violence on real-life aggressive behavior is 0.31 times higher..."

Or, do naturally aggressive people like more violent entertainment?

"Early and unprotected sexual activity, particularly if exposed to pornography."

I don't know about you, but I was never "exposed" to pornography. In my day, getting your hands on a girlie mag was hard work! So some of the kids who look at dirty pictures are sexually precocious? Who knew! (I wasn't so lucky...)

"Alcohol and tobacco consumption, with exposure to smoking in movies..."

This one may have some merit, since old movies make smoking look so damn cool. But I still have to give credit to peer pressure here, and the fact that these "bad" kids are watching more adult media.

"Obesity, with possible culprits including the marketing of junk food and fast food and the tendency to eat while watching media."

...and the not exercising. But then, of course, we'd have to blame books too.

"Heavy television-viewing — that is, two to three hours a day in early childhood has been linked with attention-deficit disorder during the early school years, though experts disagree about the nature of the connection."

That one seems to cancel itself out. As far as I can see, today's movies and TV shows seem to be made by people with ADHD — not the other way around.

"And where's the parenting in all this?", you might ask. Kids who are spending too much time alone with electronic media are doing so because it's being allowed. Their parents either lack the time or the inclination to engage with their kids face-to-face, to get them out of the house and into activities, and to stop relying so much on an army of electronic babysitters.

This kind of correlation without causation research reporting reminds me of that bit in Freakonomics where a mayor looked at research showing that kids with books in their homes had higher literacy levels, so naturally set out to put books in every home. No question as to what sociological factors are at play. Just more books = more reading.

Media do not equal behaviours. At least, not unless you see people as sponges. I don't. I think it's the other way around.

PS: Welcome to new readers from the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University. It was great speaking to the Marketing class this morning.

New anti-obesity ads pretty much ensure I'll never eat again

Look closer. It's shocking. It's gross. It's... veiny. And according to the BBC, these New York City Department of Health ads may be too disgusting to even make an impact:

"These images look so disgusting that it's a turn-off, you look away without taking the message in," said George Parker, an advertising expert and author of The Ubiquitous Persuaders.

It's apparently also triggering a backlash campaign by the Center for Consumer Freedom who are running ads that throw up statements like "You’re too stupid to make good personal decisions about foods and beverages" and “It’s your food. It’s your drink. It’s your freedom.”

The New York Department of Health ad is a hard-hitting one, if you take the time to stare at it and make the connection between unsightly fat and sugary drinks. If. But if you'll excuse me, I now feel like purging my healthy lunch.

Eurobesity

Yesterday, the European Union Agriculture Commissioner launched a healthy eating program for kids throughout the EU.

According to coverage from the CBC, the EU estimates that 22 million European children who are overweight, and five million are obese. (That's one overweight child for every 22.7 people, versus the United States' one in every 12.2.)

Here's the EU's own description of the program (note targetted countries):

The Healthy Eating Campaign will run alongside the EU’s School Fruit Scheme and School Milk Scheme – important initiatives for a more balanced diet and healthier eating habits amongst children.

The Healthy Eating Campaign takes the message: Eat it, Drink it, Move it right into schools. Over the course of eight weeks, the roadshow will travel through Belgium, France, the UK, Ireland, Estonia, Lithuania and Poland. Each roadshow will visit two schools a day. In total the healthy eating activities will reach 18 000 kids in 180 schools. The message to deliver is: Eat well, because it’s fun to be fit.

In parallel with the roadshow, an interactive treasure hunt game will be running over the 8 weeks on the EU's Tasty Bunch web site, where all EU schoolchildren aged 8 to 15 could try to win a number of sports items.

A recent Eurobarometer survey showed three quarters of respondents “totally agreeing” that “there seem to be more overweight children these days than five years ago". Indeed, around 22 million kids are overweight in the EU, of which 5 million are obese.

As a social marketer, I applaud this effort to put nutritional information in children's hands. But as a parent, I doubt it will have much impact.

I strongly believe that healthy eating habits start at home, by ensuring your child is exposed to a wide variety of tasty and healthy homemade foods, and teaching them some basic cooking skills. This helps set their appetites in the right direction, and I hope that making my son a foodie from a young age will provide some protection from the endless temptations of junk food once he's "out there" on his own.

I could be overconfident about how well my clever plan will work in the long run, but regardless I think that campaigns for healthier eating at school are doomed if the kids go home to crappy convenience food every night. If all you eat is sugar, salt and fat, everything else is going to taste less appealing.

What do you think?