The Swedish brand Absolut has announced a 2012 year long marketing campaign called ‘Absolut Outrageous’ featuring the tagline: ‘Celebrating 30 years of going out and coming out.’ The campaign refers to the brands decades spanning support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. While Absolut may not be new to this game, other … Read More →
New details have been made public about a deal between Heineken and Facebook. According to Reuters.com, the first goal of the partnership is to make responsible drinking cool. To reach this goal, Heineken can use the experience and expertise of Facebook to maximize the effect of their marketing to 800 million Facebook users worldwide. As … Read More →
In a bid to prevent legally mandatory health warnings on their products, the Australian drinks industry has recently introduced their own warning labels. However, market research by Galaxy Research has overwhelmingly rejected these labels in favor of the labels produced by the Foundation for Alcohol Research & Education (FARE). Also labelleling news from Europe and … Read More →
A new study by the New Zealand Massey University and SHORE, Social and Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation, suggests that establishing a brand alliance between the age of 13 and 14 is not only related with drinking and future intentions to drink, but also with harmful drinking patterns including binge drinking. Furthermore, the study implies … Read More →
Professor Joe Barry and Dr Ann Hope recently accused the Irish government of giving in to ‘corporate bullying’ by the alcohol industry. Consequently numerous administrations allowed the industry to self regulate and thus failed to curb alcohol advertising. The two Irish alcohol experts voiced their concerns about alcohol lobby groups’ power to shape policy at … Read More →
A new study in the international scientific journal Addiction suggests that the average US adolescent is heavily exposed to alcohol brand references in popular music. Genres like rap, hip hop and R&B being the main source of ‘brand dropping’. The study showed that in every hour of popular music, about 3.4 alcohol brands appeared. Given … Read More →
Members of the Irish parliament as well as Senators recently came together to ask critical questions to alcohol industry representatives about the role that marketing plays in alcohol consumption amongst young people. The politicians were all part of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health & Children, which convened only shortly after the publication of a … Read More →
Two Western Australia health groups have filed complaints about a music video for the US band Cobra Starship which shows frequent images of young people in a nightclub drinking the liqueur Midori. Cancer Council Western Australia and the McCusker Centre for Action on Alcohol and Youth both find the video a blatant advertisement for Midori. … Read More →
Earlier this month Systembolaget, the agency that handles the Swedish monopoly on alcohol aired a new campaign on Swedish television called ‘How smooth is that?’, mocking the way that famous spirits brands market their product. Over in England, Balance, the alcohol office for the North East region, has started a campaign called ‘See what Sam sees’. The campaign visualizes the amount of exposure to alcohol marketing an average English child sees on a daily basis.
Last Thursday the Lithuanian government, the Seimas, debated on whether or not to persist in the plans to implement a law banning all forms of alcohol advertising by January 2012. The stake in the discussion was primarily the implementation of amendments to the legislation which would weaken the proposed protective measures against alcohol advertising. After … Read More →