It was a fixture of weekday nights on Sky One for years – 2 episodes of the Simpsons, each preceded by a short advertisement for Domino’s Pizza. The product and show were, seemingly, a perfect match. After all, the protagonist of the show – Homer – is renowned for his love of all things indulgent. OFCOM’s ruling in February 2009 that the sponsorship was in breach of regulations that forbid advertising of food that is high in fat, sugar and salt during programmes that are predominantly watched by children. This ruling followed the pizza chain’s decision to drop its sponsorship of the show in late 2008, when Domino’s stated that it had a ‘clear and consistent policy of never marketing to children’.
The adverts of the new sponsor – the government’s Change4Life campaign – show a Simpsons-like family morph from junk-guzzlers into a vegetable-eating, sitting-at-the-table family. Analysis of the show by health experts revealed that skateboarding Simpson son Bart achieved the recommended 60 minutes of exercise a day, while his vegetarian sister Lisa probably consumed at least 5 fruits or vegetables a day.
The line on the advert ‘Supporting the Simpsons –sometimes’ acknowledges that the food habits of America’s favourite family (it’s close between them and the Obamas) are mixed. For every hour of cardio Bart does on his Skateboard, Homer is gorging himself – famously in one episode in order to become obese (even more obese) in order to evade an obligatory employees’ health and exercise campaign in the nuclear power plant. Here he is in a fetching muumuu celebrating achieving his weight gain target.
Maybe not such perfect bedfellows after all….