ALCOHOL and ADVERTISEMENT

Carolina Gutierrez

Alcohol… A drink or a lifestyle?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M8Dp7wGBe4

Early Alcohol Advertisement• 1952 Scotch company Ad

Bing, Bob, and Dorothy • Alcohol advertisements

have been present since the early 1900s.

• Early alcohol advertisements pretty much resembled the lifestyle and role of society: the upper classes drank fine wines and champagne (as could be seen in movies) while lower classes celebrated with moonshine and things of that sort.

• As can be seen, early alcohol advertisements stand for luxury and lust.

• A man playing the violin would serve as a symbol for elegant lifestyles while selling a relatively cheap product.

• A pauper wouldn’t identify him/herself with this ad: early alcoholic beverage advertisements tackled the upper classes who would spend money on “pleasure” products.

Masculinity and Early Alcohol Advertisements

• Quite a while back, the role of males and females in society were clearly defined: men were supposed to work and be attended by their wives while women were supposed to be full time housewives.

• The significance of the role of males and females in society was tackled by the media and alcohol advertisement.

• Thus, the first alcohol advertisements depicted either a female serving a male an alcoholic beverage or a male living life successfully drinking alcohol.

The easier the better.

Notice the “hard task” of opening the beer can was performed by a female – once again the role of genders during the early 1900s can be seen.

What does this mean?

• Companies who spent money on advertising their alcohol aimed to gain a larger profit than what they spent on doing it:

- Representing luxury on their ads would target the interest of the upper classes who would be willing to spend money in order to look and feel as wealthy and luxurious as possible.

- Emphasizing a man’s masculinity in ads would increase a man’s desire to consume the product.

…the results:

• “Before 1975 or 1980, there was a substantial increase in the consumption of alcohol throughout the industrialized countries.” – wealth ad target.

• “Before 1980, the increase in alcohol consumption primarily involved men and, today, excess male mortality is higher than it was forty years ago” –masculinity in ads.

Alcohol Advertisement Evolution

• As time goes by, gender roles have become almost equal and the means for advertisement has grown enormously.

• This means… more people are consuming alcohol, production has increased, and costs for advertisements are ridiculous.

• The new targets for alcohol ads are both males and females as well as rich and poor. Nowadays even the poorest wish to enjoy the “pleasures” alcohol provides.

Alcohol: a Lifestyle

• Advertisement has converted alcohol from a market product to a lifestyle. The desire people have towards alcohol and what it “promises” them is because of the ads.

• Companies will continue to spend millions on advertisements in order to keep up the competition. Promotions and sales are advertised worldwide due to substitutes. (for instance, absolut vodka is much cheaper than grey goose vodka so one must compete with the other in order to remain in the market).

Alcohol in the Media

• The available evidence indicates that more than 300 wine brands, 350 beer brands, and 1,400 distilled spirits brands are marketed in the U.S., but fewer than a quarter of them are advertised through measured media each year.

Yet the amounts spent on advertisement reach the billions…and this is just fewer than a quarter.

Costs

• United Kingdom:

In the year (2009) to the end of June, £72m was spent on TV ads by alcohol companies, £46.5m ploughed into newspapers and magazines, £28m went on outdoor billboards and posters, £14m on cinema ads and £4.5m on radio. A further £15m was spent on direct mail.

Instead of spending on alcohol ads the UK could buy…

• 10,578 luxury mini coopers the first half of the year.

Alcohol ads aids the media

• “A complete ban on alcohol advertising would have a ‘devastating’ impact on the ailing TV, newspaper and magazine sectors, resulting in more than £180m-a-year in ad revenue disappearing from company balance sheets, according to forecasts” in the UK.

• “Even for heavily advertised brands, measured media advertising typically accounts for only one third to one half of total promotional expenditures, and of course, many brands do not used measured media at all” (this includes internet advertising, product placements in movies and TV shows etc).

…more costs

• United States: “Alcohol companies spent $4.9 billion on television

advertising between 2001 and 2005. They spent 2.1% of this amount ($104 million) on “responsibility” advertisements.

Of the 300 alcohol brands that placed product advertising on television from 2001 to 2005, at a total cost of $4.7 billion, 25 brands placed “responsibility” advertising at a total cost of $104 million.”

There were 1,415,716 alcohol product advertisements between 2001 and 2005.

Instead of spending on alcohol ads the US could have bought…

• Approximately 12,280,701 64 GB iPod touches.

so… is it worth it?

What do YOU feel?

Craving life?

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwDYYVY09gw

…a need to take a break?

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcgssJNMhAw

Have a little fun?

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1ZZreXEqSY

Absolutely!

• Recent estimates put the amount spent on alcohol in the US in recent years, at 57 billion dollars per year

• This means that taking the average cost spent on advertisement, their profit will be around $54,775,000,000

• “Each 1-percentage-point increase in adolescent viewership was associated with a 7-percent increase in beer ads, a 15-percent increase in spirits ads and a 22-percent increase in ads for low-alcohol refreshers/alcopops — flavored alcoholic beverages that taste similar to juice or soda” (UCLA).

• Alcohol. Estimated annual cost: $166 billion. Binge drinking hits the unemployed harder on a per capita basis -- 10.4%, vs. 8.4% of employed people. It is most prevalent in small metropolitan locales, rather than big cities or rural areas. The $18 billion spent on alcohol and drug treatment last year (2009) represented 1.3% of all health care spending.

Does it Affect the Economy?

• The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) estimates that a combined $276 billion was spent or lost in 2005 on health care, lost productivity, premature death, auto accidents and crime relating to drug and alcohol abuse (about $18 billion of the tab went for treatment).

…Hear it from the experts

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIyTtJv8EL4

Alcohol and Advertisement significance

• Alcohol creates many unnecessary expenses that may hurt the economy in many ways.

• Because of this, alcohol companies need to create advertisements that will blind people into buying their product and not fall for the “responsibility” trap.

• For the media and regular market, alcohol is a product that provides great profits (supermarkets, liquor stores, duty free stores etc).

Did you know… • By the time teenagers

reach driving age they will have seen 75,000 ads for alcohol (CQ Researcher, 1992).

• 56% of students in grades 5 through 12 say that alcohol advertising encourages them to drink (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2001).

• American children view 2,000 beer and wine commercials per year (American Academy of Pediatrics, 1995).

Works Cited http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/76394.html http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/bud.jpg http://www.buyvintageads.com/# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_advertising http://www.zwani.com/graphics/alcohol/images/alcohol73.jpg http://www.taverntrove.com/beerpics/Pabst-Blue-Ribbon-Beer-Paper-Ads-P

abst-Brewing-Company_16789-1.jpg http://www.springerlink.com/content/m431187548423165/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/sep/08/ad-ban-devastate-media-

industries http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Forbes/

The5MostExpensiveAddictions.aspx http://www.chacha.com/question/how-much-money-is-spent-on-alcohol-

each-year-in-the-united-states