Future Now
The IFTF Blog
No Logo: A New Strategy for Health?
The FDA announced the other day that we in the U.S. would be getting something much of the world has had for a while now: packs of cigarettes with gruesome photos of the gruesome diseases you can get if you smoke regularly. These kinds of horror movie images are already commonplace on cigarettes packs in Canada, New Zealand, the UK and Brazil. You can check out a gallery of gory/ostensibly educational images here, (if you’re into in that kind of thing). But while we in the states are just catching up with much of the developed world, Australia is already on to the next thing: packs of cigarettes with no imagery whatsoever. Just a plain package, with plain text describing the contents, printed in generic font: no colors, logos, or any other form of branding/marketing.
It’s an intriguing approach, (and not just because it makes the packs like something out of “Repo Man”). One could argue it’s a less intrusive regulation, in that it doesn’t confront smokers with a grim reminder of their own mortality every time they open their pack. There are also arguments that say these kinds of regulations are more effective as well.
The gory approach can be looked at as a sort of a low-tech “feedback” intervention. When the smoker goes for the pack, they are confronted with an image that reminds them of the consequences of their actions, long before that consequence takes place. This image proves immediate “feedback” in the form of a “future preview” (we’ve written about more high-tech “previews” quite a bit).
The box with no packaging on the other hand, intervenes at a much higher level—it aims to prevent tobacco companies from making their product appealing at all. In her “twelve leverage points to intervene in a system,” scientist and system analyst’s Donna Meadows argues that the highest impact interventions target “paradigms,” in other words, our culture and the stories we tell. The plain box could be seen as a regulation on the tobacco companies’ ability to tell stories and affect culture.
It’s pretty hard to dispute that there is a strong relationship between stories and regulation. Generally that relationship is as follows: stories dictate regulation. For instance, as consumables with negative health impacts, tobacco and alcohol occupy a unique space—they’re regulated but not banned, while illegal recreational drugs are wholly illegal and unhealthy foods are completely legal. The lines are drawn concretely—and have remained largely unchanged since prohibition. And while they are pretty consistent with our culture and our stories around “drugs” and “food,” they’re inconsistent with scientific evidence.
For some time, studies have shown the marijuana is less harmful than either cigarettes or alcohol by several metrics. At the same time, studies since the ‘70s have shown junk food can be as addictive and harmful as many drugs. In one particularly damning experiment, cited by the New York Times, sugar-addicted rats were so drawn to Froot Loops that they would “suppress their natural fear to eat in the exposed areas of their cages,” which in the rat world, might be the equivalent of holding up a liquor store.
Today, we are starting to see signs of changes in the way we regulate food. San Francisco made national headlines last year with the so-called “Happy Meal ban,” a law passed directly by voters that doesn’t actually “ban” the McDonalds “happy meal” it makes it illegal to package a toy with children’s meals that don’t meet nutritional guidelines in restaurants. (The toy can be looked at as essentially an advertisement). And while most of the U.S. scoffed, the U.K., Switzerland and Malaysia have taken steps to limit the marketing of unhealthy products to kids years ago. (The American Academy of Pediatrics, by the way, has stated that because children have limited ability to think critically, “advertising directed toward children is inherently deceptive”).
It’s notable that by addressing marketing, all these regulations intervene at the story level. It’s also interesting that, after decades of science, they are just happening now. While it’s hard to directly attribute the drive to regulate fast food to the book “Fast Food Nation” or the film “Supersize Me,” it’s hard to deny that these two works changed the national food discourse in a profound way.
Regardless, the tobacco companies are taking the matter seriously. They are fighting fiercely to stop the plain-box regulation, threatening to sue the Australian government in international court. But they’re also fighting with a series of advertisements warning that the Australian government is acting as a nanny state, clearly indicating that they see the power of stories as well.