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Monday, December 31, 2001
You may have seen the Smirnoff vodka ad on TV: Four highball glasses stand on a bar, a hand appears to turn one upside down and a set of car keys is displayed -- indicating that the nondrinker is the designated driver. Some viewers may be surprised by the ad's responsible drinking message, but the real surprise is that the ad is on television at all.
Until a few years ago, ads for distilled liquor were kept off the public airwaves as part of a voluntary ban. Then in 1996, manufacturers and distributors of distilled liquor began buying ads in non-network TV markets such as cable. NBC recently announced that it would take the last step and begin accepting distilled alcohol ads.
What followed was fairly predictable, given the conflicted way that liquor consumption is viewed in American society. The American Medical Association criticized NBC's decision as "shockingly irresponsible" and "greedy." A group of lawmakers in Congress asked NBC to reconsider and threatened to ban the ads if the network doesn't co-operate.
But NBC's decision really isn't irresponsible; it's more commonsensical. Alcohol is alcohol, and wine and beer are routinely advertised on TV -- and it is hard to argue that Americans are fatally seduced by those ads. Indeed, the whole notion that advertising literally drives people to drink is a dubious one, not conclusively proved by scientific research.
So why advertise then? The answer is brand identification among people who already drink. Provided that the ads aren't pitched to youngsters, it is illogical to ban ads for one sort of alcohol and not another. As it happens, distillers have abided by a voluntary Code of Good Practice for advertising since 1934, and pitching their products to youngsters is forbidden.
NBC has added its own set of rules.: Among other things, the ads must be clearly and unambiguously directed to adult consumers, and advertisers of hard liquor must commit to run "social responsibility messages" (such as the need for designated drivers) as part of their campaigns. No athletes, entertainers or other public figures can appear. No animation or promotional character are allowed (sorry, Spuds MacKenzie). No consumption can be shown.
In a Dec. 19 op-ed piece in The Washington Post, Randy Falco, the president of the NBC Television Network, cited these self-imposed rules in defending his company's decision, which he cast as making hard-liquor ads on TV "more responsible." He wrote, "We are aware that such advertising is proliferating, and the real issue is rather how to regulate a body of advertising that has been growing rapidly without any real regulation at all."
Actually, the real issue is more money for the network. Still, one doesn't have to accept the artificial piety surrounding this decision to acknowledge that NBC's guidelines do offer some protection to society, and that the distinction between distilled liquor ads and those for beer and wine is an artificial one. Most Americans probably never knew that hard-liquor ads were absent from network TV, and their appearance now won't tear the social fabric either.