HFSS Regulations: The Biggest Creative Opportunity in a Decade

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Why Performance Marketing Made Us Forget What Real Loyalty Means

The last ten years refined our obsession with single touch attribution. We optimised for the click, the scroll, the immediate conversion. In doing so, we lost something important: lasting repeat purchase relationships.

Digital marketing gave us unprecedented ability to track immediate response. We could see exactly which ad drove which click. The problem is that what we could measure became what we valued, regardless of whether it was what actually mattered.

As Rory Sutherland observes in Alchemy, the models of human behaviour devised by economists and conventional marketers are wholly inadequate at predicting actual human behaviour. We built our measurement systems around economic logic rather than psycho logic. We assumed people made rational decisions based on product value. They do not.

A customer prize draw offering free energy worth over £1,000 received 67,000 entries. A subsequent draw for a penguin nightlight worth £15 received over 360,000 entries. One customer turned down a £200 refund, saying they would rather have the penguin. This is not nonsense. It is non sense. It only appears irrational because we are measuring the wrong things

We optimised for clicks and lost lasting repeat purchase relationships

The obsession with direct response meant we forgot what real loyalty means. We stopped building relationships and started buying transactions. Every interaction became an attempt to close a sale rather than deepen a connection.

Robert Cialdini's research on influence demonstrates that reciprocity is one of the most powerful drivers of human behaviour. When brands give value before asking for anything in return, they create obligation. When they only take, they create resentment. Performance marketing, in its purest form, only takes. It asks for the click, the conversion, the purchase. It rarely gives first.

The result is a race to the bottom. Customer acquisition costs rise because everyone is fishing in the same performance pond. Brand differentiation erodes because every ad looks like every other ad optimised for the same metrics. Loyalty disappears because customers have no reason to stay when someone else offers a marginally better deal.

Using paid media to accelerate emotional bonding, not just transactions

The Mad Men TV show Hershey's pitch was based on a fundamental truth: paid media can accelerate emotional bonding between customers and brands. It can create tribes. It can make people feel like they belong to something larger than a transaction.

HFSS regulations force us back to this truth. When you cannot advertise the product directly, you must advertise the feeling. When you cannot show the chocolate bar, you must show what the chocolate bar means. This is not a limitation. This is marketing the way it should have been done all along.

The fine tuned insights from paid media can now inform brand building rather than just transaction hunting. Everyone will have to do this eventually. The brands that start now will own the territory before competitors catch on.

Three Investment Areas That Sidestep HFSS Restrictions Entirely

The regulations restrict product advertising. They do not restrict brand building. They do not restrict owned media. They do not restrict the creation of experiences that make customers want to belong.

The first investment area is brand awareness digital advertising. Hyper targeted campaigns around daily moments that align brand with customer story. The 3pm slump. Sunday meal prep. Post gym pride. Secret getaway moments. None of this is impacted by HFSS because none of it mentions specific products.

Costa during COVID provides the template. Their 2020 loyalty scheme positioned coffee shops as places for sharing stories and coming together. The message was not about selling coffee. It was about being a place to stay a while. That positioning is regulation proof because it never depended on product advertising in the first place.

The second investment area is building tribes and owning data. Use paid channels to activate customers into unique brand experiences. Own those relationships forever, regardless of how HFSS regulations evolve. Freddie's Flowers demonstrates this approach: an online only brand using pop ups to demonstrate brand feel, capturing data through activations, then converting that data into lifetime subscription relationships.

The third investment area is selling the feeling rather than the product. Digital paid connects at moments that matter. Personalised point of sale for the romantic dinner. AI merchandising combined with digital ads within driving range. The product is incidental. The experience is everything.

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Community Commerce: Brand Stories Worth Belonging To

Community commerce makes customers want to belong. It uses hyper targeting and regional creative to tell stories relevant to every UK town. AI helps with accents, actors, and regional cues. The value is created by increasing product value through brand marketing rather than product advertising.

How Cadbury can reframe existing creative for compliance using AI infill

Existing creative does not need to be abandoned. It needs to be reframed. The 'identifiable food' provisions in HFSS regulations mean that adjustments to end cards and product shots using AI infill can make previously non compliant work compliant again.

Cadbury's existing campaigns sell brand emotion and experience around sharing. They are not really about the specific product. Remove the identifiable product shot and the campaign still works because the feeling is what matters. The chocolate is incidental to the human moment.

This is not about finding loopholes. It is about recognising that the best advertising was never about the product anyway. David Ogilvy understood this decades ago: the best advertisements create a feeling that becomes associated with the brand. The product is the vehicle, not the destination.

Regional hyper targeting that tells stories relevant to every UK town

Mass market advertising assumes everyone responds to the same message. Behavioural science tells us otherwise. People respond to messages that feel relevant to their specific situation, their specific place, their specific community.

AI now makes it economically viable to create dozens of regional variations rather than one national campaign. A campaign that references local landmarks, local accents, local cultural moments creates a sense of belonging that generic advertising cannot match.

This approach also happens to be HFSS compliant by design. When the focus is on community and belonging rather than product, the regulations simply do not apply.

Building tribes through owned data and first party relationships

Nike's rewards club and shoe release programme demonstrates the endgame. Instead of special edition products sitting on shelves waiting to be discovered, launches happen through apps to loyal customers. Golden ticket concepts executed through digital membership create memorable brand moments that drive in store revenue.

Apply this to food and beverage. Instead of advertising products that fall under HFSS restrictions, build membership programmes that create anticipation and exclusivity. Capture the data through the programme. Market to that data through owned channels where HFSS restrictions do not apply.

The path from creative concept to revenue becomes: brand moment, data capture, owned channel marketing, in store or online purchase. Product advertising is removed from the equation entirely.

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The Experience Economy: Selling the Theatre, Not the Ticket

What you do after connection is key. The Carrefour and Synerise partnership demonstrates how to take EU data and create personalised in store shopping experiences that work in countries with similar HFSS rules.

The mechanics are straightforward. Tailor offers as customers shop based on basket contents. Italian meatballs plus parmesan triggers an artisan olive oil offer. The experience feels personal rather than promotional. The paid media strategy drives engagement with personalised brand experiences through email, location data, and small product engagement signals.

This is unaffected by HFSS because you own the relationship through first party data. It functions like email marketing: a personalised experience delivered through an owned channel. The regulations govern paid advertising, not owned communication.

Marriott's Salto AI partnership takes this further. Face recognition enabled speakeasy dining experiences create high tech, exciting food experiences. Paid media and advertising invited non guests to exclusive, brand built experiences. Subscribers and app sign ups to membership clubs were able to access private dining experiences with new chefs via invite only.

The experience platform enabled marketing of food and drink experiences without any limitation. The regulations govern advertising. They do not govern experience.

Lidl and Synerise in Slovakia demonstrate AI product flat lays for recipes tailored to cuisine preferences and shopping cycles. The result is increased footfall and optimised expiring stock sales. The technology creates value while the human connection creates loyalty.

Podcast brand alignment offers another avenue. Sponsoring podcast physical live events means the brand facilitates the experience. Data capture happens through ticketing and event advertising. No product placement is needed because the brand association is created through facilitation rather than advertising.

Gaming environments represent a new product placement haven entirely. Building brand legacy into gaming storytelling aligns brands with excitement, moments, and cultural relevance. Place branding rather than product in story moments. Mirror real world experiences in digital environments.

These are not creative experiments. They are scalable, measurable strategies that build brand equity while avoiding HFSS restrictions entirely.

The Opportunity: Better Marketing, Not Less Marketing

The core message is this: justify brand building budget with paid media. Supercharge brand activations. Turn market share investments into revenue drivers.

HFSS is not the end of food and beverage marketing. It is the beginning of better marketing. Marketing that builds tribes. Marketing that creates moments. Marketing that drives revenue through relationship rather than transaction.

The winners will be brands that understand this shift. They will not just survive the regulations. They will thrive because of them.

Expand the brand building budget we have often abandoned in pursuit of performance. Use it to create market share increasing digital experiences. The regulations have not closed a door. They have opened one that most competitors are too focused on compliance to notice.

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Key HFSS Compliance Points

For practical planning, these points from the regulations matter most:

• Paid influencer marketing for HFSS products is effectively banned from January 2026. Gifting products counts as payment, so only genuinely organic posts with no commercial relationship are permitted.

• Hotels, restaurants, and food service are exempt from placement and promotion restrictions but face full advertising restrictions. They can offer meal deals in venue but cannot run paid social ads for HFSS items if they have 250 or more employees.

• Non compliance brings public ASA adjudications searchable for five years, potential fines up to £250,000 or 5% of turnover, and significant reputational damage amplified by health advocacy groups.

• Organic posting on brand owned channels remains allowed. The moment you add paid amplification it becomes advertising and is banned.

• Restaurants can include HFSS promotional offers in newsletters with mandatory age verification excluding all under 16s.

• Product shaped logos with visible chocolate or ingredients likely breach 'depiction of specific product' rules. Safer to use abstract marks without product resemblance.

• Reformulation is explicitly permitted and encouraged. PepsiCo has reformulated entire ranges. Nestlé has achieved 11 of 12 bestsellers compliant. This maintains advertising capability while meeting health standards.


The regulations are complex and evolving. The principles in this article provide strategic direction. Specific execution requires legal review against current guidance.