PR Budgets Bulge Against Obesity

"Kraft Foods grabbed the PR high ground in the public debate about obesity and America's unhealthy eating habits by announcing a series of planned changes in how it will make and market its products," PR Week reports. "The changes include increased communications with various groups interested in the obesity issue, as well as proactive efforts to encourage improved child fitness and nutrition." But the Guardian's Mark Borkowski calls Kraft's move "PR at its shabbiest and most shameful. It is an abject demonstration of the way in which PR can create and then exploit an agenda of apparent corporate responsibility to promote a brand, enhance its status, and to set out a stall that provides pre-emptive evidence to guard a company's reputation against future attack." Borkowski points out the dubious nature of Kraft's desire to be "part of the solution," considering that the food company is majority owned by the Altria Group (formerly Philip Morris). O'Dwyer's PR reports the Ad Council has hired GYMR, a Washington, D.C. firm, to handle PR for a government-sponsored anti-obesity campaign. The effort, called "Healthy Lifestyles," has a $125,000 PR budget through December. Eric Leininger, senior VP of marketing services for Kraft, is on the Ad Council's board of directors.