as at July 2011
a) iMama editorial decision on all advertising campaigns is final.
b) We encourage and seek out advertising from ethical brands and retailers.
c) We do not accept advertising for:
d) We do not accept advertising content that is deemed to be false, misleading, or medically unsubstantiated.
e) We are working within UK Government Regulations on the advertising and promotion of infant and follow-on formulae and only work with companies who do the same. These Regulations implement certain recommendations from the WHO Code on the marketing of breastmilk substitutes, but do not legally require companies to adhere to every aspect of the WHO Code.
In its most basic form, the WHO code states:
There should be no advertising or promotion to the general public of products within the scope of this code: breastmilk substitute, including infant formula; other milk products, foods and beverages, including bottlefed complementary foods, when marketed or otherwise represented to be suitable, with or without modification, for use as a partial or total replacement of breastmilk; feeding bottles and teats. It also applies to their quality and their availability, and to information concerning their use.
However, UK Government Regulations, only prohibit the advertising and promotion of breastmilk substitutes for infant formula - i.e. up to 6 months. Anything like the advertising of follow-on milks and bottles/teats is allowed.
So, the Code is much wider-ranging and stricter than UK Government Regulations. This is because the WHO code is not binding on UK legislature. The UK is bound by EU Law, and the UK Government Regulations are actually based on the European Commission Directive 2006/141/EC on infant formulae and follow-on formulae.
The EU would have looked at the WHO code and got additional advice on how much of it needed to made law. Some countries have implemented it wholesale, others, such as European countries, have only legislated some of it.
In line with these UK Government Regulations, we do not accept advertising for infant formula, but we do accept advertising for follow on formula. Our reasons for this are as follows:
We believe it is every parent's right to make up their own mind about how to feed their child and we feel it is our duty to make sure they get access to the right information and the support to do what they feel is best.
Our aim is to help increase the numbers of women breastfeeding but we are also mindful of those women who are not physically able to feed their children themselves and have to rely on formula. We want to make sure they have the right information about formula companies to make an informed choice.
We also feel that by banning any involvement with milk companies we are inadvertently judging those women and their choices/options in a negative way and contributing to the culture of increased pressure and guilt that is rapidly growing around infant feeding.
f) We do not accept advertising in/on some content provided by third parties who request no advertising on their content, such as charities, but in-page ads may appear when this content is being viewed through the player.
g) We do not accept in-player or in-page advertising around any content that is listed under the heading 'Grief and Loss'.
h) We use a frequency cap on in-player advertising which means that a user does not see any ad more than 3 times in any 24 hour period.
i) We only accept pre-rolls on films which are over 1 minute long (excluding some third party content/Grief and Loss).
j) Overlays should be no longer than 15 secs and we accept them on all films which are 15 secs+ (excluding some third party content/Grief and Loss).
