Do meat advertising bans change what we eat? What Amsterdam can learn from Haarlem, tobacco, and food policy abroad

Amsterdam’s decision to ban meat advertising in public spaces has been hailed as a climate and health milestone. However, although evidence from tobacco, food policy, and economics suggests such bans can reduce visibility and shape norms, they rarely deliver large shifts in consumption on their own

When Amsterdam’s municipal council voted in January to ban meat advertising in public spaces, the move was presented as a practical step toward the city’s climate and public health goals. From 1 May 2026, meat products will no longer appear on billboards, bus shelters, or other publicly owned advertising infrastructure, making Amsterdam the first capital city in the world to introduce such a restriction.

Supporters argued that limiting the promotion of meat in civic environments could help encourage more plant-forward diets, reinforce public health objectives, and reduce food system emissions, without restricting individual choice.

Amsterdam’s decision, however, was not without precedent. Nor did it represent a leap into untested policy territory. Instead, it expanded an approach already underway elsewhere in the Netherlands, most notably in the nearby city of Haarlem. Together, the two cases provide a useful lens for examining a broader question: what advertising bans can achieve in food system transitions, and where their limits lie.

Haarlem as the test case

Haarlem became the first city in the world to announce a ban on public meat advertising in September 2022, with the policy due to take effect from 2024. The municipality confirmed that adverts for meat products would be removed from billboards, digital screens, and public transport infrastructure, citing the climate impact of meat production.

The announcement quickly exposed the practical challenges of such policies. Questions emerged over how “meat advertising” would be defined, whether restaurant menus or mixed-product brands would be affected, and whether organic meat would be treated differently. Legal experts raised concerns about freedom of expression, while critics questioned whether the ban would amount to little more than a symbolic gesture.

Those debates did not halt Haarlem’s policy, but they highlighted a recurring issue: advertising bans are straightforward to announce, but far more complex to define, enforce, and assess in practice.

From municipal pilot to capital city policy

Amsterdam’s move followed the same logic, but on a larger scale. As in Haarlem, meat advertising was grouped with other products already restricted in public space, including fossil fuels, petrol cars, and air travel. Within Dutch municipal policy, meat is increasingly treated as a climate issue rather than solely a dietary one.

That distinction matters. Climate-oriented advertising restrictions tend to be judged less on immediate changes in consumption and more on their contribution to longer-term shifts in social norms. The question, then, is whether experience from other sectors supports that expectation.

What tobacco control shows

The strongest evidence in favor of advertising bans comes from tobacco. When the UK introduced a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising and promotion in 2003, smokers’ awareness of pro-smoking marketing fell sharply across almost all regulated channels. The decline was significantly greater than in countries that did not introduce comparable measures.

Reduced exposure meant fewer everyday prompts to smoke, particularly in public settings. Importantly, the UK ban was wide-ranging, covering print, broadcast, billboards, sponsorships, promotions, and product placement.

Even so, the limits of advertising regulation were clear. Follow-up research found that between 9% and 22% of smokers continued to report frequent exposure to pro-smoking cues after the ban. These cues did not stem from gaps in advertising law, but from the continued legal sale of tobacco itself, including packaging, point-of-sale visibility, pricing strategies, and incidental exposure through media and culture.

Smoking rates declined over time, but not because advertising disappeared alone. Progress accelerated only when bans were combined with high excise taxes, public education campaigns, plain packaging, age restrictions, and smoking bans in workplaces and public spaces. Advertising controls played a supporting role rather than driving change on their own.

Why food responds differently

Food advertising operates under very different conditions. Unlike tobacco, food has no clear boundary between acceptable and unacceptable consumption. Governments are not aiming to eliminate it, and eating habits are shaped by culture, affordability, convenience, and routine.

Economic research suggests that food advertising bans can reduce demand for targeted products, but that markets adjust quickly. In studies of snack foods in the UK, advertising restrictions initially reduced sales by around 15%. After companies adjusted prices, the net effect fell closer to 10%. Consumers substituted toward other products, while manufacturers used promotions and pricing to regain volume.

The pattern appears consistently across food categories. Advertising restrictions reduce visibility, but they also make demand more price-sensitive and encourage substitution. Consumption shifts rather than collapses.

This behavior is well understood in economic theory. Advertising connects producers and consumers through shared platforms such as public space, media, and retail. Removing advertising alters competitive incentives, pushing companies to compete through pricing, distribution, and in-store promotion instead. The result is adaptation rather than disappearance.

The problem of enforcement

Consumer behavior is only part of the story. Whether advertising bans succeed often depends on how they are implemented. A recent qualitative study of Iran’s long-standing ban on advertising unhealthy products, including food, alcohol, and tobacco, found that enforcement failures were driven less by public opposition than by institutional fragmentation.

Policymakers pointed to overlapping mandates, weak enforcement authority, limited monitoring capacity, and economic resistance from media and producers as the main obstacles. Passing a law proved far easier than coordinating action across regulators, advertisers, and industry.

These issues are relevant for Amsterdam. Municipal authorities control public space, but not digital advertising, retail pricing, product formulation, or national dietary policy. Advertising budgets can move quickly toward online platforms, in-store promotions, sponsorships, and price-led marketing, all of which fall outside city-level control.

Where bans fit in a wider transition

None of this makes Amsterdam’s policy redundant. Advertising influences norms as well as behavior. Removing meat promotion from public space sends a clear signal about the city’s priorities and may reinforce existing shifts in public attitudes, particularly in a country where surveys suggest many consumers are already open to reducing meat consumption.

Animal protein still accounts for roughly 60% of protein intake in the Netherlands, well above the balance recommended by national health authorities. Advertising restrictions may support gradual change, especially when combined with procurement policies, school meals, and institutional catering standards.

But evidence from other sectors suggests that visibility alone rarely delivers the scale of change implied by climate targets. In tobacco control, exposure fell long before consumption declined. In food systems, purchasing decisions respond more strongly to price, availability, and default options than to messaging.

This is where alternative proteins and blended products become relevant. Research increasingly points to incremental substitution, particularly in foodservice and institutional settings, as a faster route to impact than wholesale dietary change. Blending plant-based or fermentation-derived ingredients into familiar formats can reduce cost, improve nutrition, and lower emissions without requiring consumers to abandon established habits.

From this perspective, advertising bans can create space for change, but they do not do the heavy lifting. That work happens through procurement, reformulation, pricing, and the everyday choices that shape diets by default.

Amsterdam’s ban will almost certainly reduce the visibility of meat in public spaces. It may contribute to a gradual shift in norms. What it will not do on its own is halve meat consumption or deliver large emissions reductions.

That does not make the policy misguided. It simply defines its limits.

Across tobacco, food advertising, and public health policy, the evidence points to a consistent conclusion. Advertising bans reduce exposure. They work best when they are comprehensive, clearly defined, and supported by enforcement. But they are most effective when treated as one part of a broader set of measures, rather than a solution in themselves.

As other cities consider following Amsterdam’s lead, the more important test will be what comes next. Not whether meat disappears from billboards, but whether advertising restrictions are followed by the slower, less visible work of changing how food is produced, priced, and served.

That is where lasting dietary change has always been made.