We need legally binding rules to control the promotion of alcohol

The Ronan Mullen Column

A radio jingle for one of their most best-known products, Thunderbird, ran: "What's the word?/ Thunderbird/ How's it sold?/ Good and cold."

Author Ellen Hawkes, who wrote an unauthorised history of the Gallo family, describes how Ernest Gallo once drove his car through a tough inner city neighbourhood. Spotting a drunk man on the footpath, he rolled down his window and called out: "What's the word?" He was delighted by the immediate answer "Thunderbird."

Low price, low quality wines still have a loyal following among the homeless of America's inner cities, not least because of clever tactics employed by retailers. At the time of the month when welfare cheques are paid, large bottles dominate the shop shelves. Smaller bottles replace them as purchasing power diminishes. Eventually, only the smallest bottles are displayed until the next welfare cheque is due for payment. These predatory instincts characterise our own drinks industry too.

Despite the national debate generated by RTÉ's recent Prime Time documentary, the subtle and seductive marketing of alcohol continues undeterred. Part of the reason is that in Ireland we seem to have legislation where we least need it, and none where it is really necessary. Some days ago, former Taoiseach John Bruton took

RTÉ and the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland to task for refusing to broadcast Christmas advertising for the Irish Catholic newspaper. "These are hard times for the Catholic Church," the commercial ran, "so hard that it's easy to forget all the good that the Church does." Bruton scoffed at the broadcaster's claim that Section 65 of the Broadcasting Act prevented them from airing these particular words, while noting that "every second ad they broadcast is for a narcotic such as alcohol".

While we have legislation that stops any reference to the good the adherents of a particular religion may do, the message that "Guinness is good for you" has been on the go for years. In fact, the only alcohol ads banned from TV and radio in this country are those for unmixed spirits.

The promotion of beer, wine and alcoholised soft drinks alcopops is unaffected. The only regulations in this area derive from a voluntary code supervised by the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI).

This code says alcohol advertising should not "exploit the young or the immature". It stipulates that all characters portrayed in alcohol advertising should be, and appear to be, above 25 years old. Ads should not depict people in an intoxicated state and alcohol should not be shown to contribute to social, business, or sexual success. Those who drink should not be portrayed as brave or daring.

While the drink industry constantly pledges its allegiance to the code, Patrick Kenny, a lecturer in marketing strategy in Dublin Institute of Technology, says there is evidence of widespread abuse. Kenny notes that twice this year the ASAI sanctioned Coors Light for its advertisements depicting young males engaged in drinking games. In the view of the ASAI Complaints Committee, these advertisements were likely to be attractive to minors and would encourage excessive drinking.

"In a similar fashion," Kenny reports, "Smirnoff Ice has been taken to task for creating a connection between consuming that product and success in attracting members of the opposite sex, while Guinness' depiction of a man rescuing the Guinness supply from a bar in a town that had been destroyed by a volcanic eruption was felt to link bravery with the consumption of alcohol."

The frequency of such manipulative advertising makes you wonder why the ASAI isn't more vocal in calling for more powers to regulate the advertisers. But there is incompetence as well as impotence. Earlier this year, both RTÉ and the ASAI approved a Carlsberg ad which promoted the company's official sponsorship of the Irish World Cup team. The ad featured Robbie Keane who is under 25, a fact which directly contravenes Chapter 6 of the code. It was only later, on foot of complaints, that the ASAI Complaints Committee overturned the view of its own secretariat.

To be fair, the ASAI has upheld quite a few complaints about drink advertising this year. But it does so with no legal force, no capacity to impose fines, and only after the drinks companies have derived the early benefits of the offending commercials. Since these benefits are particularly significant if the ads have any kind of shock or outrage factor, the advertisers get a return on their investment anyway.

Meanwhile, the mantra-like assertions from the drinks industry that it doesn't target young people go unchallenged, while its high-profile advertising proves just the opposite. "The manufacturers of spirits are keen to attract younger drinkers," says Joe Treacy, an alcohol addiction counsellor with the Western Health Board, "because they know that habits formed in youth remain the habits of later years."

Treacy recently embarrassed Guinness into removing billboard advertising located too close to a school in Galway. He also argues that the GAA and other sporting organisations should refrain from holding award ceremonies in pubs, especially where these concern the activities of younger players.

"There is no point attacking teenage drinking unless the huge amount of crazy drinking by adults is also the focus. But young people and women are the latest victims of the binge-drinking culture. Ten years ago, the average age of people coming for alcohol treatment therapy was the mid-30s, and the majority of our clients were male. Today, we have a large number of people in their late teens, and as many women as men."

Mr Treacy sees a role for the drinks industry in paying for the strain on the health service to the extent that alcohol abuse is part of the problem. "We now have near riot situations occurring frequently in the casualty units of hospitals. Nurses are attacked and damage is done to hospital property. Yet those who market and sell alcohol will make 100 million in profit this year."

The Government Strategic Task Force found that, in 1999, the State took in 1.5bn in alcohol-related revenue, while the payout in alcohol-related social welfare, health care costs, absenteeism, crime and road accidents caused by alcohol came to 2.2bn. Were the Government to recoup some of that 700m shortfall, it would go a long way towards paying for much needed "dry-out" facilities for alcoholics and educational programmes for schools.

But while the drinks industry should pay for the harm it causes, prevention would be infinitely better. If the current wave of anger about alcoholism is to mean anything, legislation must control the way alcohol is marketed and advertised. At a minimum, all advertising should be vetted prior to screening or display. The ASAI code should be legally binding, and there should be the power to impose significant fines, calculated by reference to company profits, for breaches of the law.

That's if the Government is serious about the problem. It could go even further by banning drink advertisements featuring people or social situations. This would return drink ads to their traditional territory of slogans and logos, and reduce their potential to exploit people's insecurities. "Guinness is good for you" might yet rediscover its original meaning.