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Work Package # 5Regulation and taxation

Control and counter the effects of advertisements and online marketing

Summary

Task 5.6 focuses on controlling and countering the effects of harmful marketing, including two pivotal sub-tasks. The first sub-task is dedicated to establishing an operational structure and EU-wide Implementation Package to aid Member States in implementing policies against harmful marketing practices targeting vulnerable populations, especially children and adolescents. The second sub-task aims to map the marketing landscape at the EU level, identifying emerging strategies and evaluating current regulations to enhance the effectiveness of marketing restrictions. This task collectively advances efforts to protect public health from the adverse impacts of marketing on dietary choices and lifestyle behaviors, contributing significantly to NCD prevention.

EU Operational structure and the EU-wide Implementation Package to support Member States in implementing policies to reduce harmful marketing (food, tobacco and alcohol)

In this sub-task (i) an operational structure will be established and an EU-wide Implementation Package to support Member States in implementing policies to reduce harmful marketing will be developed (unhealthy food, breastmilk substitutes, alcohol, tobacco and related products) aiming to promote a more effectively frame and enforce regulation on harmful marketing, specifically targeting children and adolescents.

This EU-wide Implementation Package is intended to provide personalized support and training to MS:

  1. On developing and implementing legislation to restrict harmful marketing (unhealthy food, breastmilk substitutes, alcohol, tobacco and related products);
  2. On implementing and adapting the nutrient profile model to the national context;
  3. On implementing the marketing monitor protocols;
  4. On how to deal with the industry lobbying and with other barriers for the policy implementation.

This EU operational structure will be composed by experts in different fields (legal experts, experts on public health, on marketing, on digital and statistics) and it will be designed to develop and deliver specially designed trainings to MS to develop and implement legal frameworks to restrict harmful marketing and technical training in monitoring harmful marketing, in particular at the digital level. To support the implementation of the EU-wide Implementation Package on marketing restrictions, an user-friendly platform will be developed to host all marketing related tools and to provide guidance to support Member States with the implementation process of policies to restrict food marketing. 

(ii) Map the marketing landscape at the EU level, trying to identify emerging marketing strategies and the existing regulation. In this task we aim: to analyse the legal frameworks regulating harmful marketing at the EU level; to understand challenges, barriers and opportunities within the design, implementation and enforcement of existing legislation and to analyse data collected by the marketing monitoring activities in participating countries (data collected through the monitoring activities of the previous subtask). For this subtask we will use data from existing databases, such as the JRC database, WHO and Best-ReMaP data. These existing data will be supplemented by additional information that will be collected by interviews with the Member States. 

Actions to create public awareness of harmful marketing and to promote critical marketing/digital/media literacy

The public and civil society partners awareness about the harmful marketing might have a positive impact in industry behaviour and also in influencing policy action. With this subtask we aim to:

  1. Design and implement trainings to promote critical marketing/digital/media literacy, among children, young people and parents/families/caregivers;
  2. Design a communication campaign to create public awareness of harmful marketing and of the rights of the children to be protect against these harmful practices.
  3. Build networks of support of marketing regulation, including civil society partners, health professionals, education professionals, young people.