Former Test spinner Stuart MacGill is adamant sports and sports stars should not accept money to promote food brands like KFC and McDonald’s. “I don’t think you can have any of us advertising junk food to be honest,” he told Crikey.
MacGill, who retired from Test cricket in 2008 and has been making a career in commercial radio, is particularly concerned about Test cricketers’ endorsement of KFC, which is owned by the world’s largest fast-food company, Yum Brands.
For the last eight years, KFC has been a “gold partner” of Cricket Australia, spending up to $8 million a year on marketing and promotion linked to the sport. For this it gets TV ads, endorsements from the Australian team and Channel Nine commentators, a KFC Classic Catches competition and billboards at the games. KFC also gets naming rights to the Big Bash Twenty20 competition, televised by Fox Sports, and the title of Australian cricket’s official fast food restaurant. All up, it probably pays Cricket Australia between $1 million and $2 million a year.
“The problem for me is that KFC and Cricket Australia are hitting parents where they’re vulnerable,” said MacGill, who has two young children. “Parents are already under a lot of pressure from kids to buy this stuff and when you get the Australian cricket team endorsing it you just increase that pressure. It’s just wrong in so many ways.
“Cricket Australia and KFC would say they’re promoting a healthy lifestyle, but it’s absolute tripe.”
Just before he retired, MacGill refused Cricket Australia’s instruction to take part in a TV ad for KFC. “They had just accused me publicly of being unfit and told me I would have to lose weight if I wanted to play again. And I just hit the roof. I said: “you’re telling me I’m fat and you want me to do a KFC ad? Well, you’ve got to be crazy. I’m not going to do it.'”
Australia’s elite cricketers are required to do KFC ads for free as part of their contract with Cricket Australia, and MacGill had no right to refuse. But Cricket Australia did not force the issue. “They backed off pretty quickly,” he said. “They could see that the press might say something, and if the press didn’t I would.”
MacGill also has concerns about Milo’s junior cricket program, which has been running since 1993 and has introduced 5 million young Australians to the game: “I don’t think Milo would exist any more in Australia if it weren’t for Milo cricket. It’s been the greatest marketing exercise of all time.
“It’s not even called cricket, it’s ‘Milo in2cricket’. First day they turn up they get a bat, a bag, a hat and a shirt, which are all branded Milo, then they have to wear that every time they play. It’s just a brandathon. At least it makes my kids drink milk, but I don’t really want them drinking chocolate milk, and yet we’ve got Milo in our house.”
Rob de Castella, Australia’s former world-champion marathon runner, shares MacGill’s concerns: “I certainly have major problems with sports men and women and organisations taking money from fast food or junk food companies. I had a couple of offers to do ads for fast food companies when I was an athlete and I always turned them down because I had a moral objection.
“I’d say to anyone considering it: be very conscious of the effect your endorsement is going to have on the future lives of young Australians. And it’s not just the physical consequences of obesity, it’s the social and emotional consequences as well.
“Some sportspeople don’t care. Some are driven by agents, who want their fees and commissions, like any other business. But the individuals have got to recognise they’re putting their reputation alongside something that they may not really want to be associated with.”
MacGill said today’s top young cricketers don’t even think about what they’re being asked to do: “They just know they’ve got to turn up, do what they’re told and there’s going to be lots of media.”
KFC defends its use of cricket to sell its wares. “We’re proud of our sponsorship of cricket in Australia which, aside from promoting KFC, also funds a large number of community programs across the country to encourage children to play the game and be active,” a spokesperson said. “It is a positive initiative and we are delighted to be involved.”
It also defends its high-fat, high-energy meals, telling people to think of KFC as “something which should be enjoyed as an occasional treat and as part of a balanced diet that includes exercise”.
Something which you won’t find in a KFC ad. Or the fact its Tower Burger, advertised by fast bowler Doug Bollinger and cricket commentators Bill Lawry and Tony Greig this summer, has one-third of an adult’s daily energy needs, or almost a half if you add French fries.
According to NSW Cancer Council nutritionist Kathy Chapman: “KFC has no redeeming nutritional qualities, and is full of fat and kilojoules, and is the sort of food product that displaces more nutritious foods (like a home cooked dinner of chicken and vegetables). It’s the worst of all.”
57 thoughts on “Don’t sell KFC, MacGill tells his cricketing mates”
scg
March 8, 2011 at 3:42 pmhi ramastar…i completely understand your point of view re my promotion of alcohol. paul barrie and i discussed that also, and im happy to share my opinion with you too. the problem as i see it is that fast food chains target kids, and do so using elite athletes who could probably eat junk all day every day and still burn it off. having said that, most modern sportsmen (not me… i’m the old fat variety) count every calory that passes their lips and rarely go down the junk food road. I on the other hand am more than happy to admit that i will be having a glass of wine later this afternoon.
RamaStar
March 8, 2011 at 4:03 pmI’ll say this and hope that I don’t come across as smart a-se or disrespectful, but I’ll take in good faith that SCG is actually you Stuart MacGill 🙂
I’ll also so that I’m not having , or was trying to have a go at you personally, or question or character. [If I wanted to, I’d fall back on my Victorian leanings and say Warnie was a better bowler! 🙂 ]
I appreciate your point about fast food targeting kids. But I’ve seen the Warne chicken McBytes adds, and while it may target kids, I don’t think Macca’s went out to specifically target kids. They’re going for a broad audience with the Warne promotions. I think getting kids is a by-product of their advertising.
On that same vein, I think the Wolfblass ad’s clearly targeted adults, but also I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some kids who were caught by the ad, and found it impressionable.
Yes, fast food does target young kids, and that is bad, it’ll affect their health in the long term. But kids are they’re growth market. But Alcohol also targets kids in a way. All be it in their mid to late teens. They target youth (I’ll use the term youth as persons 16-22) with advertising in the hope they will become their customers and purchase their brand. And as I said, with increased rates of binge drinking at this youth age group, isn’t this type of marketing/advertising just a predatory and in the long term just as harmful to health?
I’m not going to use you and Wolfblass as a text book case of this sort of youth marketing. I think the Wolfblass ad’s were more aimed at trying to get adults to switch to wine. But look at the talking Boon dolls with VB, the 4X ad’s and V8 Supercars.
I think that this is an issue that is just as serious as the one being presented here, and should be highlighted. And yeah, as I said in first post, maybe just slightly hypocritical to say one is ok, but the other isn’t.
scot mcphee
March 8, 2011 at 4:18 pmIn defence of S.C.G.Macgill, he is advertising wine, a generally very adult drink. I’ve not seen the Wolfblass ads however. And Stuart has also hosted a wine show on Foxtel (Lifestyle channel I think), which might have also added to his marketability in terms of advertising wines.
Kids, i.e. teenagers, tend to binge-drink beer, Alcopops, and mixer drinks e.g. Rum/Bourbon and Coke, and those ads definitely skew to a younger demographic. So I think this is a derail. KFC is everywhere and definitely targeted at a pre-teen market, and they definitely target their ads in other contexts as replacements for healthy diets.
Sean
March 8, 2011 at 5:05 pmYes, definitely a derail, not that it helps KFC’s case any…
I doubt Mr MacGill’s endorsement of one winemaker is going to go straight to the sensibilities of every present and would-be alcoholic out there, and they will commence getting very drunk on wine, and not just any wine, but Wolf Blass wine in particular. And ordinary BBQs and dinner parties will now be ordering in tons of the stuff where they might have had a few bottles, and a dozen adults will be so taken by an ad they will quaff far far more of the stuff than they ever ordinarily would, regardless of hangovers and fitness for work the next day. All from the power of that ad.
Apart from what anyone might think of wines from Wolf Blass, the ‘little Aussie blender’.
Pester power from impressionable kids and the appeal of cricket stars, junk food and colourful food outlets is another thing altogether. Witness the pulling power of toys from the latest kids’ movies in Happy Meals — now being ‘unbundled’ in the US by law.
Philostrate
March 8, 2011 at 7:37 pmOnya Stuart, Paul Barry & Crikey! And Simon Chapman as well for his great work. The relentless marketing of fast food crap is going to damage a whole generation. And I agree wholeheartedly about sportsmen advertising alcohol as well – has to end! These fast food companies and breweries have so much clout over governments …. and they have used sports for years to get at kids and youth – so more power to your expose! (Check out the US book Fast Food Nation for a detailed and scary account of what these corporates are up to …)
Nic Halley
March 8, 2011 at 7:51 pmGreat stuff and well done Stuart MacGill & Rob de Castella for speaking out.
I dont hink anyone seriously believes the spin that it has no impact. In 10 years we will be viewing junk food advertising the same way we view cigarette advertising now
MLF
March 8, 2011 at 9:27 pmI agree to, it’s terrific to see role models actually being role models.
I do however think there is a difference btw Cricket Aust being sponsored by KFC and the local kids football league being sponsored in the same way. Well, maybe KFC is a particularly bad example… But sponsorship funding is invaluable to community groups, and without it, many, many children and groups would be detrimentally affected.
I think the concern should be focussed on recognized, respected sporting groups and sports people not taking their responsibilities seriously. It’s that level of marketing that is grossly irresponsible, not social marketing.
Sam G
March 8, 2011 at 9:57 pmGood on you Stuart for speaking on the record, and Paul for investigating and compiling.
I always found from my previous work in advertising that the indifference and looking-the-other-way that went on was the hardest thing to work amongst. No one (99.94% of the time, anyway) in the industry breaks the law.. but it is a money driven industry, with no value is placed on health.
Perhaps current regulation needs to be reviewed?
Sense Seeker
March 8, 2011 at 10:21 pmGreat article, and excellent action by MacGill.
Advertising works (or why spend so much money on it?), so in order to protect our kids (and adults, I’m inclined to say) we need rules to limit it.
Another favourite of mine is a junk food tax. But somehow tax seems a dirty word in this country – more so than junk food, strangely.
brewesan
March 8, 2011 at 11:18 pmSo, a KFC tower burger has a 1/3 of daily calories? Then, if I only eat 3 meals a day, and choose healthy cereal for breakfast and a salad for lunch, eating KFC is no problem…?!