Booze ads on TV

[Gary Ruskin]

Commercial Alert				December 8, 2000

Following is an article in yesterday's New York Times today about the
spread of hard liquor ads on TV.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/07/business/07ADCO.html

Advertising: Cocktail Hour Returns to TV
by Patricia Winters Lauro

The commercial opens on a picturesque shot of smoky mountains, followed
by a montage of simple country scenes: a flat-bed truck filled with
barrels rambling down a country lane and a close-up of a weathered and
lined old man — all set to a country- style instrumental.

It is a familiar image that has been used to sell Jack Daniel's
Tennessee Whiskey in magazine advertising since the 1950's. But it is
now appearing in an unfamiliar but more powerful setting — on
television. 

The hard liquor industry, which has operated under a self-imposed radio
and television advertising ban since shortly after the repeal of
Prohibition, quietly dropped its own broadcast prohibition in 1996. And
since then, slowly and with little fanfare, the nation's top distilled
spirits companies — those that make vodka, gin, whiskey, rum and the
like — have turned to the airwaves to promote their products.

Though acceptance, especially on television, is sporadic and still
limited nationally, such ads are the first signs of the industry's
attempt to use all the methods of modern marketing to reverse years of
declining sales in the United States. 

Liquor companies say their absence from television had become a relic,
placing them at a competitive disadvantage against beer and wine, which
have advertised on the air for years.

Distillers say the United States — despite its Puritan heritage — is
becoming more European in attitude, and the public is now willing to
accept liquor advertising on television and radio.

But critics disagree, arguing that there is no public benefit in
advertising hard liquor on the airwaves. Instead, they say, to avoid
encouraging underage drinking and to protect public health, all
alcoholic beverage promotions — beer and wine advertising included —
should be limited and more carefully regulated. With this in mind, the
industry appears to be moving carefully to avoid attacks.

The national television networks — including most cable networks —
continue to ban liquor advertising. And drinking in general is something
that television programming tries hard not to glamorize, said Robert J.
Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at
Syracuse University. But beer drinking, he added, has always been more
acceptable. "In the past decade especially, television has been really
careful about showing drinking," he said. "In `Cheers,' for example,
there was virtually no reference to hard liquor. It was barely served
there. But beer has a social lubricant quality to it. Think of Drew
Carey or Norm — take away beer and you wouldn't have the same
character."

Last year, liquor advertising on television and radio totaled some $18
million, up from virtually nothing in 1995. Compared with the estimated
$255 million the liquor industry spent in print advertising, broadcast
advertising of liquor is a drop in the bottle. But that is changing.
This year two major brands, Captain Morgan Spiced Rum, and Bacardi,
began multimillion-dollar campaigns that included television. Other
popular brands, like Allied Domecq's Kahlúa and Crown Royal and Chivas
Regal, both owned by Joseph E. Seagram & Sons Inc., continued their
nascent TV campaigns.

"TV is the quickest way to build a brand," said Joe Tripodi, chief
marketing officer at the Seagram Spirits and Wine Group in New York.

Industry officials said television would help make mixed drinks as
socially acceptable as, say, having a beer. "Our Kahlúa ads build brand
awareness and reinforce the fact that responsible, moderate consumption
of distilled spirits is socially acceptable," said Matt Wiant, a
marketing vice president at Allied Domecq Spirits and Wine North
America.

Today, Mr. Tripodi said, it is possible to advertise on television and
reach an overwhelmingly adult audience — something that was impossible
to do years ago when the three major networks reached a mass audience
and the market was difficult to segment. The growth of a diverse media
marketplace, where programs and whole networks are tailored to adults,
is the main reason the industry says it was able to drop its broadcast
ad ban.

At the same time, just about every major liquor brand in the country has
now adopted radio advertising, said Judy Blatman, spokeswoman at the
Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a Washington trade group
known as Discus.

For years, distillers were resentful that beer and wine could advertise
on television and radio with little restriction. During the 1980's and
much of the 1990's, liquor sales lost a substantial portion of the
overall market for alcoholic beverages to wine and beer, though lately
liquor sales have risen slightly. "We vie for market share with beer and
wine and yet we're being discriminated against," Ms. Blatman said. "All
forms of beverage alcohol should be judged by the same criteria. There's
no such thing as soft and hard alcohol — alcohol is alcohol."

There is a long precedent in American culture, however, for treating the
forms of alcohol differently, said Mr. Thompson of Syracuse. Distillers
have found that getting the media to agree to equivalency has not been
easy. The National Association of Broadcasters said none of the
broadcast television and radio networks accept hard liquor advertising.
Most local affiliate and independent stations, which are free to make
their own decisions, continue to refuse liquor ads, said Dennis Wharton,
an association spokesman in Washington. The Cabletelevision Advertising
Bureau said nearly all the cable networks had similar exclusionary
policies for hard liquor.

"Marketers want to make it look like there's a huge upswing when we are
not hearing that at all," Mr. Wharton said. "Certainly there's been no
huge uptick."

Media buyers have been getting on the air by bypassing the networks and
buying advertising from local station affiliates or cable system
operators. The ads run locally, but often during very popular shows. So
while, say, NBC or a national cable network like TNT or MTV Networks
declines liquor advertising at the network level, the local station or
cable system in each market can make its own determination.

More than 100 local television station affiliates in nearly 90 markets
have agreed to take Seagram's advertising. And through local cable
system operators that have agreed to accept liquor ads, the company can
now reach almost 20 percent of all households with cable television, Mr.
Tripodi said. The big city markets remain largely out of reach, he
added, but ads for Captain Morgan ran this year on cable systems in
Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Ads for the Jack Daniel Distillery have run in 12 local markets on NBC,
Fox and CBS stations and have appeared in various cities during hit
shows like "E.R." and "West Wing," Phil Lynch, a spokesman for the
Brown-Forman Corporation, a wine and spirit maker, said. The ads have
run in Miami, Las Vegas and several small markets.

Bacardi's commercials have been picked up by cable systems in 12 states
from New York to Texas and have run in local cable markets on ESPN,
ESPN2, the Comedy Channel, VH1, and E! Entertainment Television, as well
as on MTV during the popular MTV Music Awards, a Bacardi spokeswoman,
Laura Baddish, said. The audience for the awards show, she said, had "a
higher than average composition of adults." And spots for Kahlúa's
low-alcohol line have run in local markets on USA and the Sci-Fi
Channel, said Mr. Wiant of Allied Domecq.

Local radio has clearly been a benefactor. Radio, traditionally less of
a medium for reaching children, has been more willing to accept liquor
advertising, said Jim Porcarelli, director of client services at Grey
Global's MediaCom, a media buying firm in New York that is a unit of the
Grey Global Group. Competitive Media Reporting said liquor companies
spent about $15 million on ads in local markets around the country last
year, up from $11.5 million in 1998. Seagram said it had run advertising
on radio stations in 200 of the 300 top national markets in the country.
Discus said most of the 2,000 broadcast outlets that had accepted liquor
advertising since the ban was dropped four years ago were radio
stations.

"TV has been on the radar of political watchdog groups because of its
higher degree of visibility," Mr. Porcarelli said. "Radio has been less
of an issue."

Advertisers say they have received few complaints so far.

Jim Rogers, chairman of the Sunbelt Communications Company, which owns
eight television stations — mostly NBC affiliates — in Idaho, Arizona,
Montana and Nevada, said he began accepting liquor commercials from
Seagram and Jack Daniel's a year ago. The commercials have run locally
during prime time, including during "Dateline" and the Olympics, he
said.

But liquor ads are by no means common yet on television, and the lack of
an outcry does not mean the public supports such advertising, said
George Hacker, director of the Alcohol Policies Project at the Center
for Science in the Public Interest in Washington. According to a 1998
national poll by Michigan State University, half the public favors
banning liquor commercials on television, the center said.

Mr. Hacker said nationwide advertising of liquor on TV would be a
"public health disaster." But as it spreads in local markets, he said,
he hopes it will serve as a signal to re- examine all alcoholic beverage
advertising, especially beer advertising and promotions.

Mr. Hacker does not expect the networks to ever allow liquor
advertising, saying they do not want to spur a full-scale review of all
alcohol advertising. 

By contrast, "that might be one motivation behind the liquor companies,"
Mr. Hacker added. "They'd just as soon cut beer down to size to create
an equal playing field."

But marketers say the American public will accept the idea of liquor
advertising as long as it is done responsibly. Discus requires that at
least 50 percent of an audience for a commercial be 21 or older.

Some companies impose other restrictions as well. Allied Domecq said it
had a policy of not using models in ads who are, or appear to be, under
25. To help deflect any backlash, liquor companies also devote a
significant part of their advertising budget to promoting responsible
drinking.

But media outlets also restrict access. Many stations will not accept
advertising until after 9, 10 or 11 p.m., and certain formats, like
contemporary hit radio, which aim at 12- to 24-year-old listeners, are
not used, said Eric Bethel, senior vice president at Optimedia in New
York, a media buying firm that is a unit of the Publicis Groupe.

"The media is more open to liquor advertising than it has been in the
past, but that window is still very, very small, and it's very
haphazard," Mr. Bethel said. "You may have a CBS affiliate in one market
but then not in 10 other markets. It's a nightmare having to buy it."

<----article ends here----->FOR MORE INFORMATION
* The Center for Science in the Public Interest's (CSPI) Alcohol
Policies Project has a fine web site, at
<http://www.cspinet.org/booze/index.html#bnews>.
* For college students, see the website <http://www.hadenough.org>.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP
* Ask your local TV and cable stations not to broadcast commercials for
hard liquor.

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Gary Ruskin | Commercial Alert 
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