Healthy Tax

ACT Health Promotion launches a campaign aimed at reducing the consumption of sugary drinks, following the successful model used to curb the smoking epidemic: increasing taxes, and thus prices, to lower consumption. Brazil is still one of the countries that goes against the best practices and subsidizes the sweetened drinks industry with tax incentives. The campaign uses the hashtag #heathytax and the hotsite tributosaudavel.org.br points to a petition for a tax increase, a proposal that is under discussion at the Federal Senate in Brasilia.

The goal is to show how sugary drinks are unhealthy and contribute to obesity, which in turn is an important risk factor for various diseases, such as changes in cholesterol, hypertension, acute myocardial infarction, metabolic syndrome, some types of cancer and type 2 diabetes, among others. According to the latest surveys, the proportion of obese people in the Brazilian population has grown again after stagnation in the last three years, reaching almost 20% in 2018.

The agency chosen for the campaign, offline and digital, was Onzevinteum, and it has been run on OOH and print media in Rio de Janeiro, and on social networks from ACT, Youtube and programmatic media in the rest of the country.

Actions were also planned in Brasilia, Sao Paulo and Rio. The campaign is supported by the Alliance for Adequate and Healthy Eating, a movement formed by civil society organisations committed to promoting policies aimed at food security, combating obesity, ensuring breastfeeding and reducing pesticides, among others.