Not what you'd expect in a liquor ad

[Scooter]

A film student created this ad:

[RayThom]

I guess that's Johnnie Walker BLACK, right?

This is a clever -- and very slick -- ad. I could feel the power of its meaning but it's the message that bothers me. Everything we do as humans -- birth, life, death, weddings, graduations, sports triumph, a new job, a fine meal, etc. is celebrated with a drink (or two, or three) of mind-numbing alcohol.

"Hello, I'm Ray, and I am an alcoholic" and you all know that by now. I have no problem with people who have a need for alcohol, or any other mind altering substances, for that matter. And true to free enterprise, a demand will always be met with a supply and the distillers and brewers are keenly aware of the supply-side economics of the equation. I understand it all.

Almost like the ads that sell automobiles (which are never not on sale,) so goes the ads for beer, wine, and liquor. They are pervasive and the product is never farther away than the nearest bar, spirit's shop, or supermarket. Then we sit back with our Johnnie Walker in hand and can't understand how or why substance abuse is so rampant in (global) society. Of course, the "Drink Responsibly" caveat at the end of these booze commercials absolves the makers of any wrongdoing and places the blame squarely on the mental weakness of the user.

Truth be told, my "gateway" drug to all my crazy drug abuse of yore was alcohol. I don't think alcohol needs the constant promotion it gets. Like cigarette ads of old I think the time has come to ban these ads, too. My guess is the industry wouldn't lose a dime, and would gain not having to invest so much into the marketing of their addictive products.

Damned... this rant is enough to make me drink. Cheers!

[Lord Jim]

It's only been the past couple of decades that hard liquor has been advertised on TV in this country:

Liquor Industry Ends Its Ad Ban In Broadcasting

By STUART ELLIOTT
Published: November 8, 1996

The American liquor industry decided yesterday to end a decades-long voluntary ban on the advertising of liquor products like vodka, Scotch whisky, gin and tequila on television and radio.

The decision by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, the liquor trade association also known as Discus, comes six months after the Seagram Company, the nation's second-largest seller of distilled spirits, began defying the ban -- in effect since 1936 for radio and 1948 for television -- by running commercials for several brands in scattered markets around the country.

Those tentative steps set off a furor among anti-alcohol groups and some Federal legislators and regulators, who urged that if the voluntary ban was abandoned, it be enacted into law. Even President Clinton urged Seagram to reconsider.

It is unclear how and when liquor commercials may appear on radio and television now that the ban has been lifted. The four major national broadcast television networks, for instance, have their own policies against accepting advertising for distilled spirits, and all said yesterday that they had no intention of changing those rules.

But other liquor marketers may follow Seagram's example by finding local television and radio stations and regional cable television systems that will accept their commercials, which would augment their ads in traditional realms like newspapers, magazines and billboards. For example, on Wednesday night, a cable channel in Rockland County, N.Y., ran a commercial for a Seagram brand, Chivas Regal Scotch whisky, during a sports program.

''There's no basis for letting two forms of alcohol advertising, beer and wine, on television and radio and discriminating against another form,'' said Fred A. Meister, president and chief executive of Discus in Washington.

Though the ban is being ended, Mr. Meister said, all other provisions of the advertising guidelines for Discus members, called the Code of Good Practice, remain unchanged. They include prohibitions against using ''cartoon figures that are popular predominantly with children'' or claiming ''sexual prowess as a result of beverage alcohol consumption.''

Though the code has several provisions that admonish against appeals ''to persons below the legal purchase age'' of distilled spirits, the lifting of the ban does not include any stipulations that liquor commercials be confined to later hours. Some liquor companies said, though, that they would limit commercials to time periods when older audiences presumably predominate.

A top executive of Seagram, who has been instrumental in the company's challenge of the ban, welcomed the Discus decision.

''We have felt for some time the ban was obsolete,'' said Arthur Shapiro, executive vice president for marketing and strategy for the Seagram Americas unit of Seagram in New York, which in addition to Chivas Regal sells liquor brands like Crown Royal Canadian whisky and Absolut vodka.

One reason Mr. Shapiro gave for his belief that the ban was ''out of date'' was that distilled spirits could be advertised on electronic media like the Internet but not on others like television.

''Why is one TV screen acceptable,'' he asked, ''but not another?''

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/08/busin ... wanted=all

I've never been comfortable with the TV and radio ban on cigarette advertising; I have questions about using the powers of the FCC to impose a blanket ban on the advertising of a legal product...

[Burning Petard]

At the time the ban on tv ad for cancer sticks went into effect, I was pondering just what the result would be for all those hard, rational, bottom-line big business tycoons.

NO tv ads? And no drop in sales!? Why then why buy the ads?

But sort of amusing. As the end of ads did not impact cigarette sales, the sales of tv ads went on unchanged.

(((((snailgate)))))

[BoSoxGal]

That's a beautiful ad, really hits home as I recently scattered the ashes of a loved one here on the NE coast midst heavy memories.

Thanks for sharing that, Scooter!

[Long Run]

It is a good and effective ad. But the message is a bit unsettling for the reasons Ray notes, and maybe more so because it so effectively connects alcohol with a deeply emotional event. On the other hand, their single cheers is not that different than many a wake, and is certainly more responsible than a typical beer commercial where if you aren't drinking, you aren't having any fun.

[rubato]

At the end of the day advertizing is deceitful, intended to manipulate your emotions and your mind. Ultimately your behavior. It is an attempt to exert power over others by seduction, association, fear ... When it is done well those exposed to it are less free in mind and spirit than they would have been if they'd never seen it. And they almost never know it. It is an inherently morally troubling aspect of modern life. On the whole one is better off for seeing less of it than more.


In this case, at to its defense the ad uses emotions and human relationships which are positive. Love, brotherhood, friendship. Things we would like to have more of in the world and images which make us feel better about life. The ad is very pretty. It uses one of the most common advertizing strategies; draw a picture of an idyllic world/life and put your product at the center of it. " So I accept that it is better than fear-mongering, or exciting envy, or lust, or self delusions, but it is still something to be held at arms length.


"I'd like to teach the world to sing,
in perfect harmony ... "

Real life is the real thing.

yrs,
rubato