We recently came across the practice of “anti-advertising” in our special report from Glastonbury Festival on “How to be an anti-capitalist artist?” And this week we discovered another example of the genre when youth activists occupied Westfield London, a popular shopping centre, and put up a poster calling for an end to junk food advertising during the summer holidays.

It is the work of Bite Back, which describes itself as “a movement of youth activists challenging a food system designed to deceive us all.” Their goal is to “send a clear message to the food giants: feed us, don’t deceive us.”

Ultimately, the organization envisions a world where global food companies are held to stricter standards and regulations, and schools are free from the corrupting influence of junk food. Their latest poster takes the KISS (“Keep it simple, stupid”) principle and proclaims in all caps and bold letters: “Young activists bought this space so the junk food giants can’t.”

Achieve impact

The billboard is the culmination of various advertising spaces Bite Back has taken over across the UK this summer, including petrol stations, the Bullring in Birmingham and audio adverts on radio and podcasts. Bite Back has also invited shoppers and visitors at Westfield Stratford and White City to get involved in the campaign and share their thoughts and images on social media.

“London’s Westfield White City is a huge draw for thousands of families, especially during the summer holidays,” says James Toop, CEO of Bite Back. “The junk food giants are well aware of this and exploit it to target children with manipulative marketing tactics. This campaign is more direct and asks people to rethink the impact of junk food advertising on their daily lives.

“We want to bridge this gap and show that everyone can support Bite Back’s mission to protect the next generation from the influence of big food companies.”

Need for action

Cerrera, a 17-year-old member of Bite Back’s youth committee from Milton Keynes, added: “I feel overwhelmed by the junk food adverts I see online. Whether I’m researching for school, watching TV or browsing social media, it’s everywhere. With one in three young people in the UK at risk of diet-related health problems, we need to take action now.

“We are leading the fight to change the narrative,” she adds. “It shouldn’t be our job as young activists to give children a break from junk food adverts and we’ve seen that we can’t trust the food giants to do that themselves. That’s why we need the government to protect us from this constant bombardment of manipulative marketing strategies.”

And if you think this is all a waste of time, then you should know that Bite Back has already achieved a number of important successes. For example, a recent ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld a complaint by a 15-year-old Bite Back activist against Just Eat that the organisation had failed to adequately protect children from exposure to junk food advertising on social media.