Get Fit With HFSS !

The best laid plans, and all that..........

What kind of product endorsements do you expect to find in your gym ? Cereal bars, beauty products, healthy lifestyle accessories ?

Well how about Burger King and McDonalds ?

Fresh fruit....check, water.....check, Burger King? Worth a double take!!!

Above is what has greeted me for the last fortnight in my local health club. 
So I'm doing my work-out and I'm seeing fastfood logos on clean white backgrounds of A4 paper, supported with a beautiful display of product packaging  just in case I don't know what a BigMac might look like.

Now, having worked at the heart of media promotions for many years, it strikes me that there are two main consquences of this type of promotion in the heart of an urban branch of one of England's main health and fitness chains;

Consequence 1:

Club members (most of them, to my mind) will walk past the display (it's on the gym's main thoroughfare) and notice the logo's and product placement, but they won't look closer. This itself is classic "host endorsement" of foods that are controversially HFSS. We all know this. No need to elaborate on this point. The simple message, often stored subconsciously runs something akin to "McDonalds must be OK. My gym have their products and branding displayed in their outlets."

Consequence 2:

Club members (the more curious and time-free breed) will stop by and read the promotion literature. Behind each brand logo is a table of nutritional information for various product ranges offered by the respective brand. 

So I read that a BigMac has 520 calories. Now, before I had read this, I was of the impression that such food is to be steered well clear of. Afterall, one of my aims at the gym is weight loss. And if you'd have asked me yesterday to hazard a guess at the calorific content of a BigMac I'd have come in around half your recommended daily intake (that's about 1,250 cals for men, on average) at least. But now, I'm thinking, well, turns out a BigMac is only 520 cals, so if I forego the hefty lunch tomorrow, I could fit one of these babies into my diet without much fall-out. 

Hang on a minute, let me get this straight. I consider myself a discerning shopper. I see through the "I'm Loving It" hype on the telly, the radio, the press, the tube exit staircase and so on, choosing to exercise discipline and not let the junk food guys get their argument in. I'm not open to persuasion. The tough road to successful living, but worth it.

And yet, here is McDonalds, getting it's two penneth in and swaying me the other way, courtesy of my health club! Is this what I get for my membership fees ?

There is a third consequence, which is that the promotion gets ignored, But given it's prominence and positioning, such will befall a very small minority, if any, of my fellow gym-goers.

Now, in my eyes, that's a whopper!

The Interview

So I had a word with the employee who set this up. (names of staff and gym are omitted at this stage while I give them a chance to make good. But watch this space for changes/updates)

I pointed out the above. I asked if any money had changed hands (The PR offices of those respective brands, for want of a better phrase, couldn't buy such publicity in such an environment). And I pointed out that even if this was not the case, and even if intentions were wholesome, the opposite will happen/is happening. I explained that I work in media marketing, thinking this may reassure the chap that my comments are knowledge-based good advice.

Let me say right now that he did assure me (and I believe him) that this is a non-commercial project to highlight nutritional data on popular foods and was carried out in a purely pragmatic and neutral manner with brands being selected simply on the basis of local presence.

(There's also a string of decent restaurants nearby so why the burger bars get featured rather than balanced dishes of fish, meat and veg who knows ? Too much effort, perhaps ?)

I pointed out that the project was, and I quote "naive at best" and at worst, damaging in that it promotes junk food. I also said that your good intentions and hopes and aims pale into insignificance compared to your actions. Actions are all. If you mean well but act in a way that inadvertently has the opposite effect, it's just as damaging as if you were malicious. I suggested he remove the big brand logos for those HFSS giants and also remove the product packaging. (I'd sooner the burger boys pay through the nose to get product placement on Corrie than get it gratis through, of all places, my own gym!). 

But I was dismissed on site and nothing happened. ( I popped back in an hour later and all is as all was).

The replies I received were wholly unsatisfactory to say the least and included:

" I disagree"

" Well, that's why you (ie me) don't work in fitness because I know what I'm talking about"

and finally

"I'm not going to discuss this any more."

Clearly, personal offence was taken and emotions were roused. But this isn't good enough. And as to the second comment above, although the chap is a fitness expert, he has clearly strayed into the esoteric minefield of marketing and is refusing to accept either the fact of the matter or my advice.

The bottom line, and I speak from experience, is that bringing full colour oversized brand logos and product packaging into the gym is not the best way to raise a discussion about a healthy diet.  All publicity, to some extent, is good publicity, and this is a sure-fire way of bringing these brands under the health umbrella. Like it or not, blending this type of product seamlessly into the cardio room does not inform, it subliminally promotes. 

Reasonable questions to be raised are:

Is this some kind of co-marketing push ? Is it in any way commercial ?

Have any permissions been sought and received from the brands in question ? BK et al are not exactly in control of their own marketing destiny if you just put this stuff up on a whim, after all.

What are the rights and image licensing ramifications of such a stunt ?

Have you thought about the positive perception you are creating for unhealthy food ?

Are you not in any way aware of the power of endorsement from a gym to its members ?

I'm going to look into this a little further and raise the issue with a few bods and see what gives. So stay tuned for updates.

My interviewee did mention that, having run for a week or so, the campaign is due to be taken down on Sunday February 28th 2010. I just wanted to make this last point and to snap a photo or two of the promotion (as featured above) because, call me a cynic, but if at a later stage this complaint reaches higher levels I want to pre-empt the defence/mitigation argument that the promo has now being removed - implying that lessons have been learned and that I have been listened to. In fact, I was dismissed rather contemptuously and this campaign will have run it's full intended course, begging the question, whatever next? Lambert & Butler full colour branding in the spin theatre perhaps ? Crikey!!!

Have you had similar experiences from your health clubs? I'd love to hear about them.