Commercial Alert Urges Distillers to Forgo TV Ad Campaign

[Gary Ruskin <gary@essential.org>]

Commercial Alert		      February 23, 1999

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                       NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release:		For More Information Contact:
Tuesday, February 23, 1999	Gary Ruskin (202) 296-2787

    Commercial Alert Urges Distillers to Forgo TV Ad Campaign

	Commercial Alert urged the hard liquor industry not to carry out a
new proposed $20 million to $40 million ad campaign on evening cable
television. 

	According to today's Wall Street Journal, "The U.S. liquor
industry is contemplating a blitz of commercials on night-time cable
television aimed at reversing a two-decade slide in booze drinking,
according to a strategy memo prepared for a trade group by ad agency
Bozell Worldwide."  The Bozell memo to the Distilled Spirits Council of
the U.S. (DISCUS) was dated December 7.

	"There is absolutely no good reason to try to pump up the
consumption of booze in the United States, and many reasons not to," said
Gary Ruskin, director of Commercial Alert.  "At this moment, millions of
Americans are engaged in a battle with themselves to stay away from the
bottle.  The last thing we need is a propaganda blitz to help push them
over the edge."

	"We ask Bozell and the distillers to reflect upon the predictable
human toll of their proposed ads: those killed or maimed by drunk drivers,
marriages wrecked from alcohol abuse, children neglected, families
ruined," Ruskin said. 

	"It is time to hold ad agency and liquor executives personally
responsible for the damage that their ads do to families and children,"
Ruskin said.

	In June, 1996, Joseph E. Seagrams & Sons Co. broke a 48 year old
voluntary ban on advertising hard liquor on television.  Five months
later, DISCUS re-wrote its Code of Good Practice to allow its member
distillers to advertise on radio and television.		

	"Distillers should not use television to gain access to children
and teenagers in their homes to cajole them to drink hard liquor," Ruskin
said. "We urge TV stations not to run liquor ads." 

	The proposed $20 million to $40 million TV ad campaign would be a
dramatic increase in televised liquor ads.  The Journal states that
"According to Competitive Media Reporting...liquor marketers last year
spent only about $3.1 million on TV advertising -- $1.2 million on local
"spot" TV and $1.9 million on cable." 

	Commercial Alert was founded last year to oppose the excesses of
commercialism, advertising and marketing.  The web address for Commercial
Alert is <http://www.essential.org/alert/>.

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Commercial Alert is a Ralph Nader watchdog group working to oppose the
excesses of advertising, marketing and commercialism.

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Gary Ruskin | Commercial Alert | gary@essential.org | 
1611 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 3A | Washington, DC 20009 |
Phone: (202) 296-2787 | Fax: (202) 833-2406 | 
http://www.essential.org/alert
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