ICC framework for responsible food and beverage marketing communication

The increasing worldwide attention to diet, physical activity and health is of great significance to the international food and beverage community and to the broader business community of which it is a part. The following framework has been prepared by the Commission on Marketing and Advertising of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) to address some of the issues raised by these concerns.

While underscoring the multi-sectoral nature of ICC’s guidelines, ICC sets forth the framework below to illustrate how some important ICC principles contained in the consolidated ICC Code of Advertising and Marketing Communication Practice apply in the context of food and beverage marketing communication. For the purposes of both the ICC Code and the following framework, the term ‘Marketing Communication’ covers any paid marketing communication using the following vehicles: telephone, TV, radio, press, cinema, Internet, DVD/CD-ROM, direct marketing, outdoor marketing, sales promotions and sponsorship.

ICC’s longstanding view is that marketing communication is best regulated by effective self-regulation within a legal framework that protects consumers from false and misleading claims. In this way, self-regulation best serves the consumer’s interest in receiving truthful and accurate communications. More broadly, marketers should be guided by self-regulatory principles and participate in self-regulatory processes.

To be effective, marketing communication self-regulatory systems bring together marketers, marketing communication agencies and the media to develop standards, evaluate marketing communication for compliance with those standards, and take appropriate action to enforce them. World business agrees that effective self-regulation is the system that, through a combination of best practices and determined enforcement,can best inspire consumer confidence in marketing communication.

The application of self-regulation in food marketing communication requires that it be legal, decent, honest and truthful. This framework focuses on the three intertwined issues addressed in other ICC publications: the role of commercial communication in our information focused society, guidelines for communicating to children, and freedom of commercial speech.