Festive drinking: May your ads be merry and right

Whilst there are celebrations-a-plenty across the festive season, and this may be something advertisers want to reflect in their Christmas ads, marketers featuring or promoting alcohol need to know their limits, and should certainly avoid encouraging consumers to exceed theirs.

Ads should not condone, imply or show immoderate drinking. They must be socially responsible and contain nothing that is likely to lead people to adopt styles of drinking that are unwise. The ASA ruled ads featuring statements such as “I don’t want to die sober”, “too much drink is barely enough” and “come and be hammered” unacceptable because they encouraged excessive drinking.

One vs many

In itself, featuring more than one drink in an ad (such as promoting a variety of alcoholic drinks as part of a hamper, or showing a range of alcohol) isn’t necessarily considered excessive. Nor is offering alcohol at promotional prices, or associating it with the Christmas season; the way in which alcohol and its consumption is presented in an ad is key to where the line is drawn.

The ASA will consider the context. It’ll take into account whether the amount of alcohol shown in an ad appears to be intended for consumption by a group of people, in a social setting, or if the implication is that it’s all being consumed by one individual. It’ll also look at how it’s being consumed; is the suggestion that it’s being drunk quickly in order to get Blitzened for example? If so, that would be a problem.

A depiction of a lone individual, surrounded by crates of beer, was considered to go too far for many reasons, but particularly because there was no suggestion the alcohol would be shared; instead, the ad gave the impression the individual would be consuming all of it.

How much is too much?

Marketers should avoid being seen to imply there’s an abundance of alcohol deliberately for the purposes of overconsumption.

A nightclub posted images taken at one of their event nights; it showed party-goers with three drinks each in their hands, whilst also surrounded by further drinks and what looked like intoxicated party-goers. Another ad promoted an event offering each customer five free drinks - one per venue on a bar crawl - as well as large discounts on additional alcoholic drinks. Both were seen to encourage excessive drinking and therefore in breach of the Code.

For more information about depicting consumption please see this advice.

To wrap up…

If you’re involved in commissioning, producing or overseeing marketing communications in which alcohol appears (even if alcohol itself isn’t what is being promoted) then check our new e-learning module, which offers online training around the alcohol advertising rules.


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