Swiss Pledge voluntary commitment continues to gain in importance
Danone, Intersnack, Kraft Foods, Procter & Gamble, and Zweifel Pomy-Chips have recently joined the Swiss Pledge Initiative and have voluntarily agreed to refrain from advertising aimed at children under the age of 12. Launched a year ago, this voluntary commitment to responsible advertising practices for food products has thus expanded its scope and now includes eleven leading Swiss food producers.
Coca-Cola, Kellogg, Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever had already introduced similar voluntary advertising restrictions and publicly reaffirmed them through the Swiss Pledge. Swiss Pledge borrows its content from similar programs in the EU and 17 initiatives worldwide (as of August 2011) and is open to other Swiss manufacturers. Swiss Pledge member companies are committed to responsible advertising practices and aim to use the open initiative to establish them across the industry and contribute to a healthy and balanced diet, according to a Swiss Pledge release.
Following an in-depth review, the Federal Office of Public Health FOPH made the Swiss Pledge companies partners of Actionsanté in January 2011 on the recommendation of the external expert group. To date, the Swiss Pledge is the only one in Europe that has been accepted by a national authority. An independent check on the fulfillment of the voluntary commitment by the market research institute Media Focus showed a value of 99.6 percent of correctly placed TV ads for 2010, the Swiss Pledge release continues.
Currently, the following companies are actively participating in the program: Coca-Cola, Danone, Intersnack, Kellogg, Kraft Foods, Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Zweifel Pomy-Chips.
