The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld complaints against two brands for adverts for unhealthy food aimed at children.

The complaints, submitted by the Obesity Health Alliance (OHA) and Children's Food Campaign (CFC), include:

  • An advert for a KFC [Kentucky Fried Chicken] 'Mars Krushem' milkshake drink placed in a phone box directly outside a primary school. This broke the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) code rule which states adverts from products high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS) should not be placed in areas where the audience is likely to be disproportionally made up of children

  • An advert for 'Coco Pops Granola Cereal' shown on a children's TV channel. The product (manufactured by Kellogg's) advertised is not classed as an HFSS, but the OHA argued that the advert had the effect of promoting Coco Pops cereal due to the use of branding and the character Coco the Monkey which is highly associated with the original Coco Pops cereal.

Caroline Cerny, Alliance Lead at the OHA, said: 'The ruling on Coco Pops Granola provides an important precedent for junk food marketing.

'These adverts are designed specifically to appeal to children with fun cartoon characters and catchy jingles. This ruling recognises that, even though the product shown is classified as 'healthier', the advert used all the same features as adverts for original Coco Pops cereal and therefore essentially promoted the 'less healthy' product, which is not acceptable.

'We are very supportive of brands reformulating their products to reduce sugar and overall calories, but they must market them responsibly.'

Children's Food Campaign Co-ordinator Barbara Crowther added: 'We are pleased these complaints have been upheld, but they are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to non-compliance with the rules.

'We know at least seven other complaints about fast food and confectionery ads on bus stops and telephone boxes next to schools have been submitted to the ASA. This indicates that brands are simply flouting the rules, hoping no-one will bother to complain, and safe in the knowledge there are no meaningful sanctions for non-compliance anyway.'

A spokesperson for Kellogg's said: 'We are disappointed with this decision as we ensured throughout the advert that we were only promoting the Coco Pops Granola product, a cereal that can be advertised in children's airtime.

'It's particularly surprising when a ruling from the television regulator OFCOM published on Monday confirmed that an advert for the same product was not in breach of the advertising code.'

The recently published chapter 2 of the Government's Childhood Obesity Plan1 includes an intention to introduce a 9 pm watershed on junk food adverts on TV, with a similar level of protection applied online, and a commitment to consider whether the current self-regulatory approach to advertising rules provides protection to children from HFSS marketing.