In response to the letter published in your June 16 edition of Marketing entitled “Health Check hurts us all,” there are a number of facts that we would like to clarify regarding the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s Health Check program.
Transparency is a critical and guiding principle governing the program since its launch in 1999. Licensing fee information, along with details about how the program operates, can be found on the Health Check website at HealthCheck.org.
The Health Check program operates as a cost-recovery program. It is not a fundraising program for the foundation. Financially, it operates independently from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. The fee is a sliding scale, allowing small and large companies to participate. Almost 40% of the companies in the Health Check program pay as low as $300 per SKU per year. Each participating company must state on packaging and/or menus that a fee is paid to the Health Check program.
To add the Health Check symbol to their product packaging or restaurant menu item, companies must first voluntarily submit their product or menu item to be evaluated by registered dietitians. Each product/menu item must meet certain nutrient standards based on Canada’s Food Guide.
Health Check is designed to help consumers make healthy choices within many food categories. We can only evaluate products that are voluntarily submitted to us for evaluation. We recently strengthened our criteria to reflect the new Food Guide and its recommendations regarding sodium, fibre and trans fat. To address the growing concern with sugar in Canadians’ diets, we created a sugar criteria, despite no specific federal regulations.
TERRY DEAN
DIRECTOR, HEALTH CHECK PROGRAM
HEART AND STROKE FOUNDATION OF CANADA
FEELING FLUSHED
A copy of Marketing came my way for the first time recently and I was intrigued to read Chris Powell’s article “Urban decor” (June 16, p. 10) about how Astral Media Outdoor has won a major contract “to transform Toronto’s cityscape with new street furniture.”
The scale of the makeover is most impressive. I’m sure the 5,100 new transit shelters, 12,500 garbage/recycling bins and 2,000 benches will be put to good use by many of Toronto’s 2.5 million citizens. But I’m rather concerned that only 20 public washrooms are being installed under the multimillion-dollar scheme.
Mr. Powell notes that only the transit shelters and 120 “InfoToGo” pillars will carry advertising, and he wonders how “flush” with cash Astral will be in 20 years at the end of the contract with the City of Toronto.
So the talk of “flushing” gave me the idea that Astral might raise a little additional revenue by advertising inside the forthcoming “fully-automated, self-cleaning toilets.” I’m sure that many of Marketing‘s very talented readers would be able to come up with some suitable ads for the “captive” audiences inside the new public loos, perhaps along the lines of the successful one I remember in England many years ago for a household product that its manufacturer claimed could reach the most difficult parts of a toilet basin: it ran under the inspired heading “Round the bend with Harpic.”
JOHN RAYBOULD
WESTBANK, B.C.
CANNES RECOUNT
I read your article “Hey Canada, wake up!” with great interest (July 14, p 13). Canada’s official Cannes medal tally may be eight but, in truth, it was 10.
The Integrated Grand Prix winner for Xbox was officially an American entry that failed to recognize the Canadian contribution of MacLaren McCann’s Erin Wendel and Lauren McCrindle. Both are acknowledged by name on the Cannes website but not by country. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Though the official tally was eight, Marketing gave Canada credit for nine Lions since a MacLaren radio spot for Durex won a Bronze Lion, but the award went to the U.S. because it was entered by the New York production company.)
Isn’t it just like us Canadians to be understated? Just because the Cannes credits don’t fully acknowledge multinational winners, doesn’t mean we can’t. Hopefully this letter will help to that end.
KERRY REYNOLDS
VP, EXECUTIVE GROUP CREATIVE DIRECTOR
MACLAREN MCCANN
SEXY SUMOS?
If anyone thinks there is anything remotely sexy about overweight men in a Japanese ‘diaper’ (Marketing Daily, May 28, “Subaru’s sexy sumos”), they are seriously kidding themselves. Ad people, especially ad men are completely alien to me. It’s a “what were they thinking” situation.
Wendy C. Hudson
Halifax
