In 1996, the alcohol beverage industries self-imposed ban on broadcast advertisements by the major hard liquor distillers came to an end. Some federally licensed broadcast outlets chose to accept and air the ensuing advertisements for distilled liquor products but others refused preferring to only accept fermented alcohol products such as beer and wine.
The fact we even make a distinction between fermented beverage and distilled beverage is irrational. Beer is the drink of choice in most cases of heavy drinking, binge drinking, drunk driving and underage drinking. (Rogers and Greenfield, 1999). Nearly two out of every five Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related traffic crash in their lifetime. (Loyola University Chicago Health System: http://www.luhs.org/depts/injprev/Transprt/tran1-06.htm). So, if The Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) don’t make this distinction, why are advertisers thinking it fit to do so?
Given the knowledge of alcohol consumption and its negative relationship upon overall health, shouldn’t alcohol (along with tobacco) advertising be barred from our airwaves? The fact remains that the scope and wide spectrum of alcohol use and abuse are so far ranging and complicated to categorize that the majority of reported alcohol-related DUI’s aren’t even perpetrated by alcohol abusers. (http://www.madd.org/stats/0,1056,1789,00.html) The Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) would not see the difference.
Yet to achieve their sales agenda, alcohol marketers push positive messages about drinking and downplay and/or ignore negative consequences.
It is no doubt, a highly complicated ethical matter. A ban on the promotion of alcohol would be portrayed as forerunner to wider civil restrictions. Any state intervention in the communications between individuals and organizations will harm and raise questions over our civil liberties.
A spokesperson for the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States claimed that friends and family have more effect on a young person's decision to drink than advertisement.
Yet, what hope does a non-drinker have when all those around him are being seduced to buy and consume alcohol? It is clear the promotion of drinking to individuals will have an effect on others, so we cannot ignore the fact that the promotion through direct marketing will affect non-drinkers too.
As it stands, alcohol advertising should not be designed to appeal to people under the age of 21, for example, using cartoon characters as spokespeople is discouraged. Advertising cannot promote brands based on alcohol content or its effects. Advertising must not encourage irresponsible drinking.
The industry will use a reductio ad absurdum argument:
Father- Why were you drinking?
Son – Because all my friends were doing it.
Father- You're saying that if all your friends jumped off a cliff, you would do that too?
The alcohol industry has traditionally argued that drinking is a private pastime, in which people knowingly assume risks in return for pleasure. They say, that the purpose of advertising is to "encourage existing consumers to switch brands" and to "drink in moderation," From their point of view, even, this would not make good business sense. The alcohol industry needs replacement drinkers. It is obvious marketing seeks to retain drinkers and consolidate the market by promoting the pleasure to new drinkers coming of age.
Young people view nearly 2,000 are for beer and wine. For each anti-alcohol public service announcement teenagers are seeing twenty-five more advertisements enticing them to drink.
Whether or not the advertisements have any direct impact, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism there are:
• 1,400 deaths per year
• 500,000 injuries
• 600,000 assaults
• 70,000 sexual assaults
• Over 2 million drove a car in 2001 while under the influence
Conservatives such as Margret Thatcher have famously argued "there is no such thing as society, only individuals and families". But individuals and families constitute society. Every drinker has an impact on those around him.
Fortunately, alcohol advertising is one of the most highly regulated forms of marketing. So for instance, there are hundreds of beer commercials on air, but not one of them shows somebody actually drinking the beer.
In the United States, this sort of ‘restraint’ comes in the form self-regulatory bodies that make these "ethical" choices themselves, presumably to avoid federal government intrusion and regulation into their affairs that may lead to permanent legislation governing their advertising.
As if to add insult to injury; All but one complaint from the fourteen lodged by a panel of experts, were dismissed by advertising regulators nevertheless. Seven of those complaints never made it because this self-regulating body doesn’t count one-off promotions. (www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2006/s1656790.htm). Which leads us to question whether ethical responsibility are being met.
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