Will the 'Change4Life' campaign 'ChangeOurLives'?

After a constant wave of intensity on the front of healthy eating, it has now been said that there are plans to start presenting brands that offer healthy products a ‘Change4Life Kitemark’. This is following news that the Government is reviving the scheme, (Parsons, 2013). He stated that ‘Public Health England, the executive body of the Department of Health’ is now responsible for dealing with the £55m marketing budget that has been set. A document which delineated the strategy of the campaign stated that it aimed to “explore the potential” for the anti-obesity’s campaign logo to appear on “products or services that promote healthy lifestyles”.

 

If this campaign is launched, brands like Kellogg and Nestle could transmit the logo on their healthier alternatives. In 2010 the idea of having the ‘Change4Life’ image shown on branded goods was scrapped, due to the fact that the Department of Health conveyed their concerns that consumers may feel their inclusion as an endorsement of a brand. However, brand partnerships and the private sector’s involvement in campaigns have been said to grow both to share the cost of activity and force companies to take their fair share of responsibility for public health, (Parsons, 2013).

Change4Life is now 30 per cent funded by the taxpayer, according to the strategy document, from almost 100 per cent at launch. Recent Change4Life activity has included ads from the likes of Asda, Quorn, Uncle Ben’s, the Co-Operative Food and Cravendale carrying Change4Life’s “Be Food Smart” sub-brand. Meanwhile, Public Health England says that it will for the first time, attempt the use of Sky’s AdSmart, the internet-style ad product that offers brands the chance to target specific audiences during live TV ad breaks, later this year. It is one of the numerous procedures scheduled to increase the cost efficiency and targeting of activity.

Parsons (2013) states that in an additional bid to save money, spend on traditional media channels to promote youth orientated issues, such as the campaigns that are made to raise awareness of sexual health risks, will be axed. To offset reduced spending, Public Health England is to involve more “youth brands” the chance to fund and develop campaigns.

Duncan Selbie, chief executive of Public Health England, says that the marketing has a established role to play as one of the various policy levers in assisting people to improve their health. It is dually noted that marketing is not a panacea/remedy, but it is a method of conveying a positive image that will (in hope) drive behaviour change. It also has some distinctive benefits, ‘such as speed, scale and low cost-per-head impact, hence its inclusion in NICE and Centre of Disease Control guidance.’

“In addition, new scientific insights about behaviour change and the transforming media landscape offer scope to deliver programmes of unprecedented depth and quality in ways that were simply not possible even a few years ago.”

In an analysis of these suggestions, it seems rather contradictive that the government are saying that they want to do more to improve the lifestyles of consumers by conveying a 'healthy image' when they have only recently put a 10% tax increase on all health supplements. The reasons why many people may have seen this inclusion of the Change4Life logo on brands as a way of backing certain brands is because the government seem as though they are largely inconsistent in their apporach to healthy living. They restricted the tax increase so that it would not go onto 'unhealthy' drinks such as chocolate milkshakes, but yet ignored a UK-wide petition that was made in order to limit the tax increase.

However, the inclusion of the Change4Life logo would be a positive inclusion if handled carefully and properly as there a numerous products which promote themselves as being 'healthy' and 'nutritious' when they infact have damaging ingredients which are not denoted. Therefore, if the logo is used for products that have been tested on a 'multiple-point' scale then the government could reap the benefits of a successful campaign. On the other hand, if a product that had the Change4Life logo was seen to be harmful for the recommended daily diet then trust may be lost for good for any Change4Life campaigns.