Ad Giants Pull the Plug on Youth Health Campaign: What Are They Afraid Of?

This Young Group Bought the Billboard Space. Big Ad Shut Them Down Anyway.

Last week, a powerful youth-led campaign that called out junk food advertising to kids won a national award. Days later, it was silenced.

The campaign, led by Bite Back, a movement of teenage activists fighting for a healthier, fairer food system—had one simple, bold message: “We’ve bought this ad space so the junk food giants couldn’t – we’re giving kids a commercial break.” But just before the billboards were due to go live, two of the UK’s biggest outdoor advertising companies, JCDecaux and Global, pulled the plug.

Let that sink in: young people, fully compliant with all advertising rules, used their own limited funds to speak truth to power—and the power simply shut them down.

Why it matters

Advertising space is public space. When 70% of digital outdoor ads are controlled by two companies, the question isn’t just “what gets advertised”—it’s “who gets to speak?”

Bite Back’s campaign, called #CommercialBreak, wasn’t a gimmick. It was a strategic strike at the heart of Big Food’s influence over children’s health. The aim? Interrupt the stream of unhealthy food ads flooding streets, buses, and playgrounds with something radically different: honesty.

But honesty, it turns out, doesn’t sell sugar water or ultra-processed snacks. And that might be exactly why it was censored.

The double standard is wild

Let’s be clear: the campaign followed all rules from the UK’s Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP). There were no health claims, no offensive images—just a clean, compelling call to protect kids’ health from predatory marketing.

Yet Global and JCDecaux, after initially approving the campaign, reversed their decisions just days before launch, citing "political messaging." That’s despite McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Cadbury dominating the same ad spaces with billion-pound budgets pushing ultra-processed food to children.

Why is it “political” to suggest kids deserve a break from junk food ads, but perfectly fine to tell them a chocolate bar equals happiness?

Young voices, silenced

17-year-old Farid, a campaigner with Bite Back, nailed it:

“If they didn’t think our message mattered, they wouldn’t try so hard to keep it out of sight.”

And they’re right. This isn’t just censorship—it’s a reflection of how deeply embedded junk food marketing is in our society. When young people speak truth to power, they’re told their voices are too disruptive for the public eye.

But disruption is exactly what this broken food system needs.

What’s next?

This attempted silencing only makes one thing clearer: youth-led movements like Bite Back are threatening the status quo. And that’s exactly the point.

We can’t allow truth-telling about food, health, and corporate manipulation to be labeled as "too political" to appear in public spaces. The real scandal is how normal it’s become to advertise disease-causing products to children at every turn.

If Global and JCDecaux can block campaigns that promote children’s health, maybe it's time we rethink who controls our streets, and who they’re really serving.

Let’s unfork the system

🚨 Call to action:

• Share this story. Silence shouldn’t win.

• Tell JCDecaux and Global: stop censoring truth.

• Push for legislation to ban junk food ads targeting kids—not just on screens, but on our streets.

• Support Bite Back and other youth-led campaigns calling for transparency, accountability, and fairness in food advertising.
  

These teens didn’t back down. Neither should we.