Feeling the Lull? You Certainly Don’t Need a Boost

​Look back 40 years ago at the “sex sells” adverts of the 70s and we laugh, cringe or feel an upswelling of anger depending on our point of view. Even 20 years ago in the UK you could drive past billboards for cigarettes everywhere, showing how smoking could boost your status.

How quaint.

In 10, ideally 5 years from now I’d like the kind of advertising you see above to be gone. I’d like to look back at this as being as socially unacceptable as drink-driving or selling cigarettes to teens through F1 sponsorship.

So it’s just a chocolate bar right ? It’s not going to kill you like ​booze, cigs or a speeding car is it? Well no, (unless you choke on it) you won’t die immediately. But lay this side by side with the stats on obesity and diabetes and this looks like one tiny piece of the complex jigsaw that is chronic, lifestyle-related disease.

And yes. That is killing people.

3.8 million a year to be accurate – from either diabetes or high glucose-related illnesses

Here’s why I have issues with this ad.

1 it’s clearly targeted at sedentary office workers, the kind who are already at highest risk of diabetes and other lifestyle-related diseases

2 it sells itself as a cure for the mid-afternoon powerdown, which may actually have its roots in that high-carb lunch

3 it’s positioned on a bus shelter to conveniently prime people of all ages to purchase from nearby shops on their way to work

Today we understand behavioural factors. and we can help overcome our cognitive biases. We are strongly biased towards the present and the immediate, which means we separate harmful behaviours (cigs, chocolate, spending) from their consequences (lung damage, obesity, poverty). That cigarette won’t kill you today but it will one day. Only we don’t see one day — we only see now.

We used to see smoking cigarettes as a lifestyle choice – in theory you made your own decisions based on the known health risk.

Now we know better.

We know that our poor brains are susceptible to advertising and that we don’t make decisions based on our best interest.

Halting advertising, curbing sponsorship and locking tobacco away from sight at point of sale has made a difference to smoking rates and ultimately to population health outcomes for years to come.

The last thing anyone wants is a holier-than-thou carbo-nazi on the loose. Yes I eat snack food, take shortcuts when my energy levels are low and eat things which aren’t good for me.

But I can’t help thinking that we’re on a turning point and hopefull we’ve already seen peak sugar. Governments around the world are beginning to engage with the time-bomb that is diet- and lifestyle-relates disease and preparing to weather the storm from powerful lobbyists trying to prevent or delay the inevitable.

At some point the Mondelez and Nestlés of the world will face curbs on their ability to market empty food to us. The supermarkets will no longer be able to line the checkout aisles with bars conveniently placed at kid height.

And munching a Boost bar will probably never get sidelined like smoking is – with hardcore nicotine addicts corralled into outdoor cages or huddling in doorways. But 20 years ago the answer to a 3pm lull was a quick smoke – then the norm but today socially unacceptable.

Clear choice architecture, coupled with scrutiny (and maybe restrictions) of what the sugar industry’s messaging, can help people make better decisions, ones which aren’t planted in our minds by irresponsible advertisers.

And future generations may thank us for the choices that millions of people make today in their mid-afternoon powerdown.