Malaysian Government Decision on the Banned of the Advertisements Targeting Children

Marketing Management вЂ" Question 1

Introduction

We all know that advertising is one of the methods used to create awareness and promotion (Promotion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2007). On one hand, the Star reported that Datuk Chua Soi Lek proposed the ban on fast food (Quick Service Restaurants) advertising in Malaysia (Lee 2007). Other the other, the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents Malaysia (4As) is exceedingly concern over the imposition of blanket bans on fast-food advertising. As a whole, the issue discussed below is whether or not to ban it from the print or mass media (Lee 2007).

There are a lot of reasons why the government came out with such an idea to ban the advertisement. It is simply because it creates more disadvantages than the advantage. The chief identified issue is due to the increasing children’s health and obesity problems. Datuk Chua’s idea was to address the awareness of unhealthy food and take the ban as the first action to the public (Lee 2007). The idea was very true at the first place as it may create attention to the public to watch out their food consumption. It is also being highlighted to maintain a healthy life (Lister & Hurst).

Issue 1: Promotion вЂ" Product Awareness:

Promotion is the communication tools used to target consumer to consume a product or services (Armstrong & Kotler, 2003).

Moreover, aggressive fast food advertisement believed to have caused child obesity and health issue to the public in many nations around the globe (Zdeb 2007). Fast food industry advertises heavily in media form to update their customers about their latest products and promotions because it helps a lot in creating strong brand awareness in Malaysia context. Fast food’s advertisement is more likely to attract attention of young kids and teenagers to the content of the message because it normally uses stylish imagery, subtle messages and celebrities as role models (Child obesity вЂ" food advertising in context n.d).

Implication of Issue 1:

However, the ban of such ads brings lots of negative impacts too. First and foremost, it causes the fast food industry a big shock. Not only that, its major associates which are the advertising firm and the media firm have had the same experience too. Indeed, it is very hard for the media and advertising firm to overcome this problem. This may create a lot of hassle to the firm due to the very huge amount of market share between the fast food industry, the media and advertising company. The sudden change will cost millions of Ringgit in revenue (Lee 2007).

Advertising is barely about creating awareness and brand building thus “advertising will not make people fat” (Burke 2007). In conjunction with that, Sweden and Norway are the best examples in the fast food advertising ban. Since 1990s the ban on the fast food advertising was not successful and yet leads to an increase in consumption by teenagers and children (Burke 2007). Study indicated that such banning has actually encouraged consumptions of such banned products because “the forbidden fruit tastes best” (Lee 2007).

Issue 2: Place

Place is defined as a companies activity for making its product or services available for its consumer (Armstrong & Kotler, 2003).

Furthermore, as an immediate response for such banning, operators will probably hold their business expansion plan (Lee, 2007). Individuals or companies who are looking forward to purchase the fast food restaurant would reconsider their business plan. Undeniably, jobs opportunity for the public especially the unemployed graduates will also be affected.

Implication: Issue 2

On the other side of the coin, when this problem occur, local fast food restaurant operators or cafÐ"© would take this as an advantage to set up new branches to compete with the giant company such as McDonald and KFC. Such competition creates the challenging environment in the food line industry. Other direct effects also include the impacts towards the suppliers and the viability and the quality of children‟s TV programs.

Issue

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