For the first time, retailers, media, advertisers and food & drink, fitness and healthcare companies partner with Government in the fight against obesity

Britain’s leading food and beverage, retail, media, advertising, fitness and healthcare companies have joined with Government to form a unique partnership to fight obesity.

The industry consortium, spearheaded by the Advertising Association and working in partnership across Government, will aim to encourage healthy diets and physical activity in the run up to the London 2012 Olympics and make a significant and measurable contribution to fighting obesity in the UK.

The industry contribution will be worth in excess of £200 million over the four years and will be in addition to the Government’s own £75 million, three year advertising and marketing campaign.

Advertising Association Chief Executive, Baroness Buscombe said: “The Advertising Association has never been busier, nor had more significant issues to deal with. We aim to work with government to tackle serious societal problems and demonstrate that advertising is a force for good.

“Rae will bring some very valuable experience and achievements in the communications industry, and we are looking forward to having him on board.”

Rae Burdon was formerly a senior account handler at agencies JWT, Lowe, McCann’s and Saatchi & Saatchi.

New research commissioned by the Advertising Association has identified personal friendship networks as the key to tackling the spread of binge drinking in the UK.

The results of the research establish that social influence operating through personal friendship networks alone explains the large rise in binge drinking among young people seen recently in the UK. It shows that there are decisive differences in the drinking behaviour of friends of binge drinkers compared to the drinking behaviour of friends of non-binge drinkers.

By far the most dramatic difference is seen in the behaviour of friends 85 per cent of binge drinkers think that most or all of their friends binge drink, compared to just 41 per cent for non-binge drinkers.

UK advertising expenditure reached £19.4 billion in 2007, up 4.2% year-on year, according to figures published in the Advertising Association’s Advertising Statistics Yearbook 2008. This compares to annual growth of only 0.7% in 2006.

Alongside estimates of media expenditure, the 2008 edition of the Advertising Statistics Yearbook includes estimates of expenditure on other marketing disciplines, including direct marketing, sales promotion, events, PR and market research.