You’ve Been Ad
‘WHAT do you think of when we say the words Gary Lineker?
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| After Cheese and Owen and Salt and Linkers, Walkers seek inspiration for a new flavour crisp |
Some will think of goals and see Gary scampering up the pitch in his shorts. Others will think of his ears. But your average child will think of but one thing: crisps.
Yesterday, the Guardian reports, the Commons health select committee challenged the role advertising so-called junk foods plays in a childs diet.
In the course of the meeting, the committees members challenged the wording of a private media brief for advertising Wotsits, a crisp made by Walkers, paymaster to the aforementioned Mr Lineker.
The advertising agency brief ran as follows: Wotsits are for me. I am going to…pester mum for them when she next goes shopping.
Apparently, the paper says, this breaches the advertising industrys own guidelines on encouraging children to pester parents into buying fattening foods.
But what of Lineker? Well, the Telegraph catches up with him (which these days is none too challenging) and hears him defend himself.
We never said that people should eat crisps all the time, says Lineker.
The point is todays health problems are nothing to do with snacks like crisps…We have to fight to keep our kids away from the television.
Which is the point, isnt it. Because the nippers look at whats on the magic box and next minute theyre stuffing their face with crisps, chomping on chocolate and deep-fat-frying their friends…’
Posted: 14th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
