The Food and Beverage Advertising Code sets the threshold for targeting children at under 16.
That threshold shapes the media plan, casting and creator partnerships. Check it before the brief goes out.
What the rule covers
Under the Advertising Standards Authority's Food and Beverage Advertising Code, children are those under 16 for targeting purposes. Products classed as occasional, meaning those that fail the FSANZ nutrient profiling standard, must not be advertised to children.
The test concerns who the advertising reaches and appeals to.
The three ways a campaign targets children without meaning to
1. The creator is under 16
Straightforward, and easy to check at recruitment. It comes up more often than you would expect on platforms where the strongest food content is made by young people.
2. The creator's audience skews young
Less obvious and more common. A creator whose New Zealand audience is 25% or more under 16 counts as a targeting factor, regardless of their own age or their intent.
This has to be checked against actual audience data rather than assumed from the content. Plenty of adult creators have a substantially teenage audience, and some content that looks aimed at teenagers does not.
3. The media buy does the targeting for you
Paid amplification carries the same obligation as the organic post. An audience built on interests rather than age can deliver a materially under-16 audience without anyone choosing that.
What this means for a customer content campaign
It moves the work to the front. Every one of those three factors is a recruitment and targeting decision, not a creative one, so an occasional food product is briefed backwards from the audience.
In practice that means the participant pool is filtered before anyone is approached, audience composition is checked rather than assumed, and paid audiences are constructed with the age floor built in rather than added afterwards.
The same discipline applies to the family occasion, which is where most food briefs naturally go. A parent posting about what they packed in a school lunchbox is a normal, permitted piece of content. The question is who it is aimed at and who it reaches.
The other rules that apply at the same time
Disclosure. If a brand paid for the post it is advertising, and the label is Ad, Advert or Advertisement at first interaction. Gifted, collab and sponsored do not satisfy the rule on their own.
Substantiation. Section 12A of the Fair Trading Act prohibits unsubstantiated representations, meaning claims made without reasonable grounds at the time they were made. Nutritional claims in customer content need the same evidence behind them as claims on the pack.
Consent for anyone in the frame. Including children, and including children in the background, whether or not the campaign is aimed at them.
What is left to work with
A great deal, because the adult grocery shopper is the person who makes the purchase decision anyway.
Most food briefs work better that way regardless of the code, because the person you are trying to convince is the one standing in the aisle with a trolley.
A checklist before you brief
- Does the product pass the FSANZ nutrient profiling standard, or is it an occasional product?
- Is every participant 16 or over?
- Has each participant's New Zealand audience composition been checked against the 25% threshold?
- Does the paid audience have an age floor built in from the start?
- Is the occasion an adult one, or has it drifted towards a child audience without anyone deciding to?
Five questions, answered before recruitment opens. Answered afterwards, they are a reason to throw a campaign away.
The category page is food and beverage, and the wider disclosure rules are in how to disclose paid creator content.