DoH ‘to sponsor the Simpsons’

The Department of Health (DoH) has announced that its Change4Life anti-obesity initiatve will sponsor the Simpsons on Channel 4.

Characters created specially by Aardman Animations will feature around the show from this week onwards and will run for a total of three months in a bid to raise awareness of the benefits of improved health, reports Marketing Magazine.

Created by global advertising agency M&C Saatchi, the feature shows the animated Change4Life characters gathering around a TV, echoing the habits of the famous US cartoon family.

“The Simpsons provides an ideal opportunity to reach a big portion of our target audience,” the news provider quotes Sian Jarvis, director general of communications for the DoH, as saying.

In other health news, the department last month revealed statistics which indicated that people with hearing difficulties are not waiting for as long as they used to before being issued with the devices they need.

The figures showed that patients in England now wait an average of 4.9 weeks from GP referral to receiving treatment in direct-access audiology services.