Outdoor industry releases Annual Report on OMA National Health and Wellbeing Policy

 The Outdoor Media Association (OMA) has released its second National Health and Wellbeing Policy (NHWP) Annual Report for 2022, which provides a summary of 2021-22 activities as part of the Out of Home (OOH) advertising industry’s National Health and Wellbeing Policy.

Part of the NHWP’s commitment is to donate annually to a national Outdoor industry campaign to promote healthy eating, valued at $3M. The 2023 campaign Buy in Season for Healthy Returns is currently in the market and was created in partnership with Health and Wellbeing Queensland and Nutrition Australia.

 “Operating 24/7 in the public domain and reaching 93 per cent of the Australian population living in and around capital cities every day, we know that our signs have the power to influence behavioural change. The National Health and Wellbeing Policy is just one way that, as an industry, we can help support the government’s actions to halt the rise and reduce the incidence of overweight and obesity in Australia,” says Charmaine Moldrich, OMA CEO.

The Annual Report showcases the NHWP campaign from last year, Better than you remember, developed by the OMA, also in partnership with Health and Wellbeing Queensland and Nutrition Australia. The campaign encouraged Australians to “rediscover veggies” and reached 10.4 million people nationwide across four weeks.

Launched in 2020, the NHWP was a world-first nationally consistent regulatory scheme restricting the advertising of occasional food and drink products from being displayed within a 150m metre sightline of an Australian primary or secondary school. Today, it remains the only national advertising restriction of its kind.

The Annual Report highlights the post-campaign research results for the NHWP campaigns run in 2021 and 2022, showing a significant level of campaign recall, behavioural change, and action. The Better than you remember campaign (2022) was most memorable among parents: 70 per cent of parents remembered seeing the campaign when out and about. Of those, 73 per cent said they purchased more vegetables than they usually do after seeing the campaign.

“The restriction of advertising of less healthy food and drink products from being displayed within a 150m sightline of a primary or secondary school in Australia is working. In 2021, there were zero breaches across the 6,000 signs within this zone. The NHWP annual report is our snapshot of progress in this area, and we invite you to learn more about the positive impact we are making,” concluded Moldrich.

The full report is available on the OMA website: https://www.oma.org.au/national-health-and-wellbeing-policy-annual-report.