Food Advertising Across Digital and Social Media: COFEPRIS Monitoring and Regulatory Oversight
Food Advertising on Social Media and the Internet: Monitoring, Removal Orders, and Defense
HEALTH REGULATION - COFEPRIS
Food Advertising on Social Media and Online: COFEPRIS Monitoring, Takedown Orders, and Regulatory Defense
An Instagram post, a TikTok video, a paid social media campaign, content published on a corporate website, or a digital collaboration may remain visible for only a few days and yet, months later, become the subject of a health regulatory enforcement proceeding.
For manufacturers, importers, and marketers of food and non-alcoholic beverages in Mexico, digital advertising cannot be assessed solely from a marketing perspective.
Mexico’s health regulatory framework extends to the message itself, images, characters, product claims, the context in which the product is presented, its labeling and, in certain circumstances, even the requirement to obtain a prior advertising permit. This must also be considered alongside the separate consumer protection requirements that may apply simultaneously, which are addressed in another of our Insights.
Since 2022, the Regulation of the General Health Law on Advertising has expressly incorporated the internet and other digital platforms into the regulatory regime applicable to certain food and non-alcoholic beverages.
COFEPRIS — Mexico’s Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks — does not need to physically appear at a company’s premises in order to conduct health regulatory surveillance over advertising appearing on social media or a corporate website. A campaign, or even an individual advertising piece, may come onto the authority’s radar directly from a screen.
The Regulation adopts a broad definition of advertising. It considers an advertising message to include communications directed to the public, or to a segment of the public, concerning the existence or characteristics of a product for purposes of commercialization or sale, or with the purpose of influencing conduct.
The concept of media is similarly broad. It encompasses not only television, radio, and print media, but also any electronic, computer-based, telecommunications, or other technology-based medium.
Accordingly, from a regulatory standpoint, the fact that a campaign appears on a social media platform rather than on television does not place it outside Mexico’s health advertising framework.
A brand post, a reel, a sponsored video, a targeted campaign, content published on a corporate website, or even a collaboration with a third party may constitute advertising when its purpose and content fall within the applicable regulatory definitions.
The analysis must therefore focus on the specific advertising piece itself, not merely on the name or classification assigned to the campaign by the marketing team.
COFEPRIS does, in fact, conduct digital monitoring. In March 2026, the agency announced coordination mechanisms with public security authorities aimed at strengthening health regulatory control and surveillance over products and services offered through the public internet network.
A publicly accessible campaign should therefore be developed on the assumption that it may be observed and documented by the authority while it remains online.
How Can an Online Advertising Verification Begin?
Mexico’s General Health Law (Ley General de Salud) contains a mechanism that is particularly relevant to advertising matters.
Article 396 allows health surveillance to be conducted through physical, documentary, or electronic verification. Specifically in relation to advertising, the Law also allows the use of verification reports, in addition to traditional inspections.
When the health authority identifies advertising that it considers contrary to applicable law, Article 396 Bis provides for the preparation of a detailed verification report.
That report must identify the place, date, and time of the verification; the communication medium reviewed; the text of the advertisement —or a description where the advertisement is not in written form—; the irregularities identified; and the health provisions that the authority considers to have been violated.
This explains why the dynamics differ from an inspection of a regulated establishment.
In digital advertising, the advertising piece itself may simultaneously be the subject of the verification and an important part of the authority’s evidence.
When COFEPRIS Orders Advertising to Be Taken Down, the Legal Nature of the Government Action Must Be Identified
In day-to-day business discussions, companies often use a simple expression:
“COFEPRIS asked us to take down the advertising.”
From a legal standpoint, however, greater precision is required.
Not every communication issued by the authority has the same legal nature or produces the same effects.
Based on an inspection or verification report, the authority may impose measures intended to correct identified irregularities and establish a period for compliance.
Subsequently, where the reported irregularities result in an administrative proceeding, the affected party must be given an opportunity to make the submissions it considers appropriate in defense of its rights and to offer evidence, within a period that legally may not be shorter than five days. Where the proceeding derives from a verification report, that report must accompany the relevant notice.
There is also a specific legal mechanism governing the suspension of advertising messages in health-related matters.
Article 413 of the General Health Law allows the suspension of messages disseminated through any means of social communication where they contravene health legislation or where their content affects, or may induce conduct affecting, public health.
Accordingly, when a company receives a communication from COFEPRIS, the first question should not simply be:
“Do we have to take the post down?”
It should also ask:
“What administrative act did the authority issue? Which advertising did it identify? What irregularity does it allege? What measure has it ordered? And what is the specific legal basis for that measure?”
Removing the Advertisement Does Not Erase What Has Already Occurred
This is particularly important online.
Deleting a post, deactivating an advertisement, or removing a video may comply with an authority measure and prevent continued dissemination.
However, it does not eliminate the potentially unlawful conduct associated with advertising that has already been documented by the authority.
If COFEPRIS captured or described the advertising piece in a verification report, the proceeding may continue with respect to the advertising previously disseminated.
The General Health Law subsequently allows the authority to require corrective action, provide an opportunity to be heard, and receive evidence concerning the documented facts.
For that reason, before material is removed —provided that the administrative act and applicable deadline allow the company to do so— it is legally useful to preserve internally the exact version that was online, including at least:
URL, date, screenshot, video, advertising copy, creative version, advertised product, and any changes made during the life of the campaign.
The purpose is not to keep the advertising active.
It is to preserve the company’s ability to subsequently defend what was actually disseminated.
What Can Make Digital Food Advertising Non-Compliant?
The General Health Law establishes a first layer of substantive requirements.
Information concerning quality, origin, purity, preservation, nutritional properties, and benefits must be capable of substantiation.
In addition, the advertising message must be consistent with the actual health-related characteristics of the product and must not induce harmful practices or habits.
For food and non-alcoholic beverages, the Law prohibits advertising that induces harmful eating habits or attributes to industrialized products a value greater than, or different from, the value they actually possess.
The Advertising Regulation develops these restrictions in substantially greater detail.
Among the principal regulatory risk areas that should be assessed in a digital campaign are:
attributing nutritional, preventive, therapeutic, stimulant, or other properties that do not correspond to the food product, particularly where such claims would be associated with medicinal products;
suggesting that the product contains ingredients or possesses properties that it does not actually have;
presenting consumption as determinative of changes in a person’s conduct or abilities;
inducing or promoting harmful eating habits;
claiming that a product, by itself, satisfies nutritional requirements;
exaggerating its nutritional value;
diminishing or disparaging the properties of natural foods;
using characters to suggest that consuming the product provides extraordinary abilities;
directly or indirectly associating food with alcoholic beverages or tobacco;
making claims that cannot be substantiated;
attributing to a food product the ability to prevent, alleviate, treat, or cure disease; or
failing to include applicable health statements or warnings.
On social media, this requires substantially more than reviewing a single sentence.
Copy, images, audio, characters, video sequencing, context, and implied messages must be assessed together.
An Implied Message May Be as Important as a Written Claim
Many digital campaigns never expressly state:
“This food product produces a particular effect.”
Instead, they communicate that effect visually.
A sports scene, the transformation of a character, or a particular representation of energy, performance, strength, well-being, or ability may create an association that must be evaluated under Mexico’s health advertising framework.
Article 6 of the Regulation is particularly relevant because it does not prohibit only express statements.
It also prevents advertising from explicitly or implicitly inducing the public to believe that a product contains ingredients or possesses properties that it does not actually have.
Accordingly, when conducting the regulatory review of an audiovisual campaign, the correct question is not simply:
“What does the script say?”
It is also:
“What is a reasonable viewer likely to understand after seeing the advertising piece as a whole?”
That change in perspective may be decisive.
NOM-051 Is Not an Advertising Standard, but It Directly Affects the Advertising Framework
Technical precision is particularly important here.
NOM-051-SCFI/SSA1-2010 —a mandatory Mexican Official Standard— primarily regulates the commercial and health information required on the labeling of prepackaged food and non-alcoholic beverages.
It should therefore not be described simply as an advertising standard.
There is, however, a direct interaction between labeling and advertising.
The Regulation for the Sanitary Control of Products and Services and NOM-051 structure Mexico’s front-of-pack labeling system, while Article 22 Bis of the Advertising Regulation uses that system as a trigger for specific advertising consequences.
Accordingly, before reviewing a digital campaign, it is necessary to identify the exact product being advertised and the front-of-pack labeling elements that the product is required to display, including applicable warning seals and, where relevant, restrictions involving characters.
Article 24 Bis of the Regulation establishes a particularly important restriction.
Advertising for prepackaged food and non-alcoholic beverages whose labels include one or more elements of the front-of-pack labeling system must not include child-oriented characters, animations, cartoons, celebrities, athletes, mascots, or certain interactive elements directed at children where those elements encourage, promote, or foster the consumption, purchase, or selection of the product.
In addition, Article 6 of the Regulation prohibits certain seals or statements of recommendation or recognition by professional organizations or associations in connection with food and beverage products required to display specified excess warning seals.
Once again:
the advertising analysis begins with the product and a review of its labeling, not with the advertisement in isolation.
Advertising Permits and the Regulatory Anomaly Created by the Absence of Updated Guidelines
This is one of the most sensitive issues under the current framework.
Article 22 Bis provides that advertising on television, in movie theaters, on the internet and other digital platforms for certain food and non-alcoholic beverages whose labels include the front-of-pack labeling system is subject to a permit issued by COFEPRIS.
The same provision states that COFEPRIS is to establish, through Guidelines published in Mexico’s Federal Official Gazette (Diario Oficial de la Federación, or DOF), the requirements and procedures that these products must satisfy in order to be advertised through those media, as well as the conditions for granting the corresponding permit.
The previous Guidelines were published in 2014 and have since been repealed. They were designed for advertising on free-to-air television, subscription television, and in movie theaters.
The September 2022 reform expressly incorporated the internet and other digital platforms into the regulatory framework and instructed COFEPRIS to make the corresponding amendments within the following 90 days.
As of August 2026, those updated Guidelines have not been issued.
Does the Absence of Updated Guidelines Mean That Online Advertising Is Unregulated?
No.
The absence of the required regulatory update creates a significant issue of legal certainty and operability of the advertising permit regime, because Article 22 Bis itself assigns to those Guidelines the task of defining applicable requirements, procedures, and conditions.
It does not, however, eliminate the obligations directly contained in the:
General Health Law;
Regulation of the General Health Law on Advertising;
Regulation for the Sanitary Control of Products and Services; or
NOM-051.
Among other matters, the rules governing substantiation of claims, consistency between advertising and the actual product, prohibitions relating to harmful eating habits, nonexistent or therapeutic properties, restrictions associated with front-of-pack labeling, and COFEPRIS’s health surveillance powers continue to apply.
The absence of updated Guidelines therefore should not be interpreted as freedom to advertise without regulatory restrictions.
Its significance arises principally when determining how a regulatory regime may be applied and enforced where the Regulation itself referred certain operational elements to secondary provisions that remain pending update.
How Do We Analyze a COFEPRIS Finding Concerning Digital Advertising?
When a food advertising campaign becomes the subject of regulatory monitoring, our review and recommendation do not begin simply by removing the publication and attempting to explain what happened afterwards.
We first reconstruct the exact advertising piece reviewed by the authority:
Which product was advertised? Which version was online? On what URL or platform? On what date? What images did it contain? What copy was used? What claims were made? And what overall context did the content convey?
We then analyze the verification report or other administrative action issued by COFEPRIS.
The next question is legal:
Which specific provision does the authority consider to have been violated, and does that provision actually regulate the conduct identified?
The technical dimension follows:
What are the product’s characteristics? What does its label state? Which warning seals or health statements must it display? What is its composition? And what evidence exists to substantiate the properties communicated in the advertising?
Finally, the advertising piece must be assessed as a whole:
Does it actually communicate what COFEPRIS says it communicates?
A digital advertising defense may depend precisely on distinguishing among:
what the campaign actually contains, the authority’s interpretation of that campaign, and what the product can objectively substantiate.
Taking Down the Campaign and Defending the Administrative Record Are Different Issues
Where a takedown or suspension order exists, the company may need to react quickly to stop continued dissemination.
That forms part of the immediate management of the regulatory contingency.
The administrative defense requires a separate analysis.
Evidence must be preserved, the legality of the authority’s action reviewed, the legal basis for each finding identified, and the arguments and evidence available for the subsequent proceeding determined.
In some cases, the advertising piece will require correction.
In others, the dispute may concern the meaning that COFEPRIS attributes to an image, a character, a statement, or even an implied message.
Where the government action relates to the digital advertising permit regime under Article 22 Bis, the failure to update the Guidelines may also become a legally relevant element of the analysis, depending on the specific administrative act and legal basis relied upon by the authority.
Perspective
Digital food advertising currently operates within a particularly complex regulatory environment in Mexico.
On the one hand, the General Health Law and the Advertising Regulation allow COFEPRIS to monitor messages disseminated through the internet and digital platforms and establish substantive restrictions concerning what may be communicated.
On the other hand, Mexico’s front-of-pack labeling system creates a direct connection between the characteristics of the product and certain advertising restrictions and permit requirements.
At the same time, the update of the Guidelines intended to operationalize the digital regime introduced in 2022 remains pending.
Against this background, reviewing a campaign solely by reading its written copy is insufficient.
The following elements must be assessed together:
product, labeling, composition, claims, images, characters, audience, platform, and technical substantiation.
Once the authority becomes involved, a second dimension must be added:
what COFEPRIS identified, how it documented the advertising, which provision it applied, and what the company can demonstrate.
This interaction among health regulation, advertising operations, and evidence is particularly important on social media, where creative material may be modified or disappear rapidly, while the version documented by the authority may remain in an administrative file and potentially result in a sanction.
In health-regulated digital advertising, it is not enough to explain what a brand intended to communicate. The legal issue is what the advertising actually communicated, what Mexican health regulation permits, and what may properly be substantiated and defended before the health authority.