Dr Markus Bagh of LLR, a member of the MARQUES Regulatory Team, reports on the workshop “Marketing to Kids”, which he chaired during the 31st Annual Conference in Prague last week:

The workshop was presented by the Regulatory Team and the Brands & Marketing Team.  

The goal of the workshop was to provide insight on the legal scenarios related to advertising and product marketing to kids in the toys and gaming industry as well as in the food and nutrition sector.

Legal framework overview

First up was special guest speaker Christoph Sperlich, Head of Legal at Ravensburger Group, who gave an overview on the legal framework of advertising to kids. Following his introduction to the legislative dos and don’ts Christoph asked the question “Is there a need for further restrictions and legislative measures in the field of games and playthings?” keeping in mind that games and playthings are freely available in the marketplace and cannot be considered as potential dangerous or harmful products.

To the contrary, a lot of games and playthings serve an educative function and support the development of children. Christoph pointed out that when discussing the issue of marketing to kids the question needs to be raised how a marketing campaign is considered to be addressed to kids – isn’t it relevant who actually buys the product and in which media the products are advertised? Hence, we see a quite blurry definition of marketing to kids.

Summing up, Christoph concluded that national regulations and self-regulatory codes and commitments form an adequate legal framework and further regulatory measures do not seem necessary.  

Regulatory questionnaire

The second part of the workshop was presented by Yulia Yarnykh, Gowling WLG, of the Brands & Marketing Team. She took on the Herculean task of analysing the questionnaire that has been conducted by the Regulatory Team and the Brands & Marketing Team comparing the regulatory framework of marketing to kids in 12 jurisdictions.

In particular, Yulia highlighted that despite all harmonisation as to marketing to kids on the EU level, national legal differences and certain tendencies of national courts still remain.

Food and nutrition industry

Simone Pelkmans, General Counsel of Unilever Benelux and member of the Regulatory Team, shifted the focus in the third part of the workshop towards marketing to kids in the food and nutrition industry. Simone began her presentation with a striking example of a ban of advertising unhealthy food in the subway of Amsterdam. Furthermore, Simone provided a worldwide overview of regulation in place or regulation in discussion relating to marketing to kids and clarified the challenges a global cooperation has to face when launching an international marketing campaign.

Simone closed her presentation with a detailed breakdown of the advertising standards in the food and nutrition sector referring to national/regional regulatory frameworks, self-regulatory codes (advertising standards), industry-wide commitments (EU pledge), individual company-specific food marketing commitments and best practices.        

A lively and fruitful discussion followed and the attendees contributed with vivid examples illustrating the rules of marketing to kids in their respective jurisdictions. In the end everyone agreed: the topic of marketing to kids remains a hot one and deserves to be closely followed.