Why M&S might not make a Christmas ad this year

Doubts about this year’s advert first arose after M&S chairman Archie Norman said new advertising regulations “probably means we can’t run a Christmas ad” during a speech. He was referring to attempts by the government to introduce new rules on TV adverts for food which aim to stop companies advertising unhealthy items to children.

Norman said that was a “perfectly reasonable idea” but that the proposed new rules were so restrictive, they do not just target junk food. Instead, lots of normal foods get classified as ‘unhealthy,’ meaning “you won’t be able to run an ad that includes Christmas pudding, your mince pies or sausages.”

That begs the question: where did these new rules come from? How did we end up in a situation where a well-intentioned move to protect children has resulted in innocent content like the M&S Christmas ad being effectively banned? The answer is surprising.

These proposed regulations are set to be implemented by the government, but they have their roots in charities. In recent years, a broad network of NGOs has built up in the food space. Organisations like Obesity Action, the Food Ethics Council, and Jamie Oliver’s Bite Back spend their time and money lobbying the government. Some of their campaigns, such as expanding free school meals, enjoy widespread support.

However, they are also lobbying hard for aggressive advertising rules on food. Ultimately, they are the driving force behind the government cracking down on food ads – such as the M&S Christmas ad – as well as other aggressive policies, like putting a tax on milkshakes. The evidence shows these kinds of policies don’t work – we have had a sugar tax on fizzy drinks for years, and it has had no effect, other than making a few drinks taste worse.

But more fundamental than that is the issue of these charities pulling the government’s strings behind the scenes. We elect politicians to make these kinds of decisions. It is their responsibility to build a regulatory framework for food advertising which does not make simple, inconspicuous ads like the M&S Christmas campaign impossible. It is lazy and undemocratic of them to rope charities into doing their work for them. Let charities get on with their important work, like helping the world’s poorest, and let government do the politics.

This is a big part of the reason why charities’ trust ratings have fallen. We used to have a lot of confidence in charities to do the right thing, but nowadays, they are getting too political. According to Edelman’s Trust Barometer, charities were the most trusted institutions globally in 1999, but now even for-profit businesses are trusted more. NGOs have effectively become an arm of government, so now they’re as unpopular as politicians. That doesn’t help anyone. They should leave the politics to politicians. Ministers in Westminster should reflect on whether cut-and-pasting policy from charities is really benefitting the general public.

The network of NGOs which has been distracted away from true charity work and towards political lobbying is substantial. For example, a group called Sustainweb.org, which is behind the Children’s Food Campaign, uses official advertising complaints procedures to push its political goals. A group called the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) exists to regulate TV ads, but groups like Sustain are weaponising its processes and data to complain about simple, innocent adverts which include food.

Charities are not designed to do politics. They are designed for single-issue campaigns. When you apply charity logic to politics, you get wildly unpredictable and harmful policies, like sugar taxes which just push up the price of food and drinks, and advertising rules which crack down on delightful Christmas ads featuring Dawn French. To make matters worse, most of these NGOs get their funding from the government. In other words, our taxes are paying for this.

This problem need not exist. Politicians should resist the lobbying pressure from NGOs and instead make common-sense decisions in the public interest. That’s why we elect them. The government should take a second look at the direction its advertising rules are going. More broadly, it should reconsider the role of charities in policymaking. They should make decisions themselves, not expect NGOs to do their work for them. That way, we might avoid accidentally banning M&S Christmas ads!

Jason Reed is a policy analyst and political commentator for a wide range of media outlets around the world. Follow him on X @JasonReed624 and read more on his website, jason-reed.co.uk