Cadbury and Walkers campaigns slammed by teachers

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) has slammed Walkers and Cadbury for targeting their advertising campaigns at children, giving youngsters the “misleading” impression that their products are healthy.

The NUT passed a motion against the confectionery companies on Tuesday at its conference in Harrogate, asking schools not to take any “funding” from the various tokens-for-schools schemes.

Cadbury recently launched a new &£9m “Get Active” initiative which encourages children to collect tokens on confectionery which can then be exchanged by schools to purchase sports equipment, clothing or training.

A spokesman for Cadbury says: “We are disappointed by the NUT’s motion as it misses the point. We are trying to address the serious issue of child inactivity and 4,000 schools have already signed up to the scheme.”

Walkers Free Books for Schools campaign is now into its fifth year, despite incurring controversy from pressure groups about the healthiness of the basic product and the number of tokens needed to purchase books.

A spokeswoman for the NUT says: “We are critical of the companies because schools try to promote healthy living and healthy eating and the company do too when their products have nothing to do with that.”

Walkers was not available for comment as Marketing Week went to press.