New York Alcohol Policy Summit: Expanding Public Health Protection

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

In the United States today, much of the focus on alcohol problems is limited to the issues of underage drinking and drunk driving, with both narrowly defined in terms of the problem and the acceptable solutions.  To expand this frame, several organizations including the New York Alcohol Policy Alliance (NYAPA), the New York State Public Health Association (NYSPHA), and the Council on Addiction of New York State (CANYS) met at the New York Alcohol Policy Summit in Syracuse October 6.

About 200 participants – including faith leaders, police officers, pediatric nurse practitioners, prevention educators, research scientists, coalition members, public health practitioners, policy analysts, university faculty, registered nurses, and suicide prevention advocates met to consider the health and social consequences of excessive alcohol consumption and to propose new policy approaches to reduce the adverse consequences of alcohol use in New York State.

Alcohol Harms

The starting point for the Summit was the many serious health problems associated with current patterns of alcohol use.  These include:

Suicide. Alcohol has been found to “increase the lethality of suicide attempts in individuals with mood disorders,”[1] with a CDC analysis of suicide victims finding one-third testing positive for alcohol in their systems.[2] Furthermore, age of drinking onset among young people has been linked to risk of lifetime suicide attempt (i.e., the earlier the age of drinking onset, the greater chance for a suicide attempt later in life).[3]

Cancer. Alcohol is a recognized carcinogen, which has been connected to cancers of the head and neck, liver, female breast, & colon/rectum.[4] [5] It is estimated that alcohol is responsible for 5% of the preventable cancer cases worldwide.[6]

HIV/AIDS. Excessive alcohol consumption has been shown to worsen the severity and progression of HIV through impacts on the immune system and adherence to medication.[7]

Fire Safety. Research has found that from 15-40% of decedents of residential fires are alcohol impaired.[8] Several mechanisms have been cited for this relationship, including impaired judgment, reduced ability for detection, reduced ability to escape, compromised caretakers, burn severity, and suppressed cough reflex. [8]

Gun Violence.  Alcohol has been shown to be significant factor in violence in general, but particularly related to gun violence through off-premise alcohol outlet density.[9]

And the economic consequences are just as staggering, with the CDC just releasing a study reporting that excessive alcohol consumption costs the US $224 billion a year, or approximately $1.90 per drink. [10]

Making Alcohol Policy Health Policy

With this in mind, it is apparent that those engaged in alcohol policy – and the broader public health community – need to recognize the multiple pathways of alcohol-related harm, and the parallel need to implement effective policies to stem those harms. This will require proactive media advocacy, dynamic professional education, and strategic countering of alcohol industry attempts to frame the problem – the goals of the October 6 Summit.

The plenary sessions of the Summit focused on the big picture, including the larger socioeconomic context and the state-of-the-science in alcohol policy, while the panels and workshops drilled down to the specific effects of alcohol consumption on particular health and social issues and populations. The Summit sessions were designed to break through the artificial barriers which tend to marginalize alcohol policy concerns (in prevention, treatment, and recovery) from mainstream public health concerns.

Noted attorney and alcohol policy expert James Mosher, JD was the Summit keynote speaker. He appealed to Martin Luther King, Jr. and the broader socioeconomic climate to demonstrate the need for public health advocates to embrace the opportunity of alcohol policy advocacy and work to place people ahead of profits.

Other Summit plenary speakers and their topics included:

Stacy Carruth, MPH (Regional Center for Healthy Communities, Cambridge, MA) spoke on the efforts in Massachusetts to remove alcohol advertising from the public transportation system, and the need for regional cooperation and collaboration among New York and the New England states.

Michele Simon, JD, MPH (President, Eat Drink Politics; Author, “Appetite For Profit”) described the disturbing (and sometimes amusing) parallels between the deceptive marketing practices of the food and alcohol industries;

Donald W. Zeigler, PhD (Director of Prevention & Healthy Lifestyle, American Medical Association) discussed the work of the Task Force on Community Preventive Services and the necessity of prevention advocates in engaging with medical professionals; and

Robert Lindsey (MEd, CEAP) (President/CEO, National Council on Alcoholism & Drug Dependence) described the challenge of engaging individuals in recovery in policy efforts, in light of the paradox between the personal, emotional nature of recovery and the public health population-level paradigm.

In addition, Arlene González-Sánchez, Commissioner of the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services and Pamela J. Westlake, Director of Enforcement for the New York State Liquor Authority, offered an overview of the problem of underage drinking in New York State and the ongoing efforts of their agencies to combat that problem.

Summit workshops addressed the issues of suicide, gun violence, child maltreatment, cancer, HIV/AIDS, fire safety, gambling, eating disorders, and on alcohol policy impacts on special populations, including rural communities, Native Americans, seniors, and the military (active duty and veterans).

The Summit also tackled two issues which are explicitly alcohol-related but which are rarely addressed in the context of alcohol policy: Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) and Treatment & Recovery. FASD sometimes tends to be defined, with limited goals of educating individual women to refrain from drinking during their pregnancy. While those educational efforts are necessary, they are not sufficient, considering that states with higher rates of binge drinking among women of childbearing age have higher rates of alcohol-exposed pregnancies.  This points to a need to bring drinking rates down among all women of child-bearing age, and to push back against alcohol industry attempts to target women as a growth market.

In the longer term, Summit organizers hope to catalyze action in these specific areas of alcohol policy, rather than function as one-and-done educational event.  In addition, the Summit and its aftermath may suggest directions for other advocates for more health-oriented alcohol policy for how best to expand policy advocacy from local and national arenas to a statewide focus.

 

References

[1] Sher, L., Oquendo, M. A., Richardson-Vejlgaard, R., Makhija, N. M., Posner, K., Mann, J. J., & Stanley, B. H. Effect of acute alcohol use on the lethality of suicide attempts in patients with mood disorders.  Journal of Psychiatric Research, 2009; 43(10), 901-05 .doi:10.1016/ j.jpsychires. 2009.01.005

[2] MMWR. Toxicology testing and results for suicide victims -13 states, 2004. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 2006; 55(46), 1245-1248.

[3] Bossarte, R. M., & Swahn, M. H. The associations between early alcohol use and suicide attempts among adolescents with a history of major depression. Addictive Behaviors,2011;  36(5), 532-535. doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2010.12.031

[4] Allen, N.E., Beral, V., Casabonne, D., Kan, S.W., Reeves, G.K., Brown, A., et al.. Moderate alcohol intake and cancer incidence in women. Journal of the National Cancer Institute,2009;  101(5),296-305.
[5] Boffetta, P., Hashibe, M., La Vecchia, C., Zatonski, W., & Rehm, J. The burden of cancer attributable to alcohol drinking. International Journal of Cancer,2006;  119(4), 884-887.
[6] Danaei, G., Vander Hoorn, S., Lopez, A.D., Murray, C.J.L., Ezzati, M., et al. Causes of cancer in the world: Comparative risk assessment of nine behavioural and environmental risk factors. Lancet, 2005; 366, 1784–1793.

[7] Shuper, P. A., Neuman, M., Kanteres, F., Baliunas, D., Joharchi, N., & Rehm, J. Causal considerations on alcohol and HIV/AIDS–a systematic review. Alcohol and Alcoholism (Oxford, Oxfordshire), 2010; 45(2), 159-166. doi:10.1093/alcalc/agp091.

[8] U.S. Federal Emergency Management Administration. Establishing a relationship between alcohol and casualties of fire. Report. National Fire Data Center, United States Fire Administration.  Arlington, VA:  TriData Corporation, 1999. Retrieved on June 12, 2011 from http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/Courses/arch465/arch465f06-firesafety/alcohol-fire.pdf

[9] Branas, C. C., Elliott, M. R., Richmond, T. S., Culhane, D. P., & Wiebe, D. J.  Alcohol consumption, alcohol outlets, and the risk of being assaulted with a gun. Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental Research, 2009; 33(5), 906-915. doi:10.1111/j.1530-0277.2009.00912.x

[10] Bouchery EE, Harwood HJ, Sacks JJ, Simon CJ, Brewer RD. Economic Costs of Excessive Alcohol Consumption in the U.S., 2006. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2011; 41(5), A4. doi:10.1016/S0749-3797(11)00692-1]

 

Image Credits:

  1. Turtlemom4bacon via Flickr
  2. Cle0patra via Flickr

FTC To Loko: Add resealable caps to discourage binge drinking

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

In its latest strike against fruity and boozy Four Loko, reports Ad Age, the Federal Trade Commission is forcing the malt beverage maker to add a new warning label on its super-sized version while adding resealable caps to discourage binge drinking. FTC will also require Loko to give the drink’s equivalency to regular beers on the package label.

Bud Light Hires Pitbull to Target Cuban-American Beer Drinkers

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

Hoping to add some bite to its multicultural advertising, Bud Light has hired hip hop star Pitbull in a new TV campaign aimed at tapping into the Cuban-American’s rising stardom and crossover appeal, reports AdvertisingAge. Alcohol companies are competing fiercely for Hispanic dollars. Pitbull “epitomizes everything that our brand is about. He’s fun. He’s outgoing. He’s social,” Mike Sundet, senior director for Bud Light, told Ad Age.

Wine Retailers Protest Domination by Alcohol Wholesalers

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

How does the alcohol industry influence politics? The Specialty Wine Retailers Association, a sector of the industry fearful of domination by alcohol wholesalers, recently released a report called Toward Liquor Domination How Alcohol Wholesalers, Time and Money Have Corrupted the American Alcohol Industry —A Study of Political Money and the Alcohol industry from 2005 to 2010.  It states that in the three election cycles between 2005 and 2010, American alcohol wholesalers have spent $82 million on contributions to federal and state political campaigns and federal lobbying efforts. The report also charges that “the success of the American alcohol wholesaler in buying protection from competition has put the other sectors of the alcohol industry under their control, reduced state tax revenues, and severely lim­ited consumer access to new products.”

Study Finds Alcohol Advertising Influences Brand Preferences of Underage Drinkers

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

More underage drinkers prefer a specific brand of distilled spirits, and some of the blame lies with TV advertising, according to a recent study by a group at Dartmouth College published in the July issue of Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. The alcohol industry spent $1.7 billion in 2009 on TV advertising, according to the study. The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) disputes the findings, citing other statistics that have shown a consistent decline in underage drinking.

Youth Exposure to Alcohol Ads on TV Growing Faster than Adults

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

Late last year, the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health released its latest report on television alcohol marketing to youth. The new report shows that the average American youth sees one television ad for alcohol per day. While one a day is great for vitamins, it’s not a good prescription for young people being exposed to alcohol advertising. This is a significant and troubling escalation, and shows the ineffectiveness of the industry’s current voluntary standards. Here’s what our report found:

Youth exposure to alcohol advertising on U.S. television increased 71 percent between 2001 and 2009, more than the exposure of either adults ages 21 and above or young adults ages 21 to 34, according to the analysis from CAMY.

Driving this increase was the rise of distilled spirits advertising on cable television. Youth exposure to all distilled spirits TV advertising was 30 times larger in 2009 than in 2001, with significant growth occurring in distilled spirits ads on cable. By 2009, the majority of youth exposure to advertising for all alcoholic beverages on cable was occurring during programming that youth ages 12 to 20 were more likely to be watching than adults 21 and above.

Under pressure from the Federal Trade Commission to reduce youth exposure to alcohol marketing, in 2003 trade associations representing beer and distilled spirits companies joined wine marketers in committing to advertise only when the underage audience composition is less than 30 percent. This threshold has been ineffective in reducing youth exposure on television, either in absolute or in relative terms.

Using as the comparison 2004 (the first full calendar year after beer and distilled spirits adopted the 30 percent threshold), data show that by 2009 youth exposure to alcohol advertising on television had grown by a larger percentage than that of young adults ages 21 to 34 or adults ages 21 and above.

Moreover, industry compliance with the 30 percent threshold remained uneven. In 2009, 7.5 percent of all alcohol product ad placements (23,718 ads) and 9 percent of all alcohol product ad placements on cable (16,283 ads) were on programming with underage audiences larger than 30 percent.

CAMY commissioned Virtual Media Resources to analyze nearly 2.7 million product advertisements placed by alcohol companies from 2001 to 2009, purchased at an estimated cost of more than $8 billion. Key findings include:

  • The average annual number of alcohol ads seen by youth watching television increased from 217 in 2001 to 366 in 2009, approximately one alcohol ad per day.
  • In 2009, 13 percent of youth exposure came from advertising placed above the industry’s voluntary 30 percent threshold.
  • Also in 2009, 44 percent of youth exposure came from advertising that overexposed youth (i.e., was more likely to be seen per capita by youth ages 12 to 20 than by adults ages 21 and above) compared to persons of legal purchase age (21 and above).
  • On cable television, the majority of youth exposure came from advertising more likely to be seen by youth per capita than by adults ages 21 and above.
  • From 2004, when the distilled spirits and beer industries joined the wine industry in implementing a 30 percent standard to protect against youth exposure, to 2009, youth exposure to distilled spirits ads on cable television doubled.
  • In 2009, five cable networks were more likely to expose youth per capita to alcohol advertising than adults 21 and above: Comedy Central, BET, E!, FX and Spike. Two of these—Comedy Central and BET—delivered more exposure to youth than to young adults ages 21-34.
  • In 2009, 12 brands (8 percent) generated half of youth overexposure: Miller Lite, Coors Light, Captain Morgan Rums, Bud Light, Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Miller Genuine Draft Light Beer, Crown Royal Whiskey, Corona Extra Beer, Disaronno Originale Amaretto, Smirnoff Vodkas, Miller Chill and Labatt Blue Light Beer.
  • From 2001 to 2009, youth were 22 times more likely to see an alcohol product ad than an alcohol company-sponsored “responsibility” ad whose primary message warned against underage drinking and/or alcohol-impaired driving.

Background

Alcohol is the leading drug problem among youth [1] and is responsible for at least 4,600 deaths per year among persons under 21.[2] In 2009, 10.4 million (27.5 percent) young people in the U.S., ages 12 to 20, reported drinking in the past month, and 6.9 million (18.1 percent) reported binge drinking (defined as five or more drinks at one sitting, usually within two hours).[3] Binge drinkers consume more than 90 percent of the alcohol consumed by this age group.[4]

Every day in the U.S., 4,750 young people under age 16 have their first full drink of alcohol.[5] This is a problem because the earlier young people start drinking, the more likely they are to suffer alcohol-related health and social problems later in life. Compared to those who wait until they are 21 to drink, young people who start drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to become alcohol dependent,[6] seven times more likely to be in a motor vehicle crash because of drinking [7] and 11 times more likely to be in a physical fight after drinking.[8]

Exposure to alcohol advertising and marketing increases the likelihood that young people will start drinking, or that they will drink more if they are already consuming alcohol.[9] A wide range of studies has established the association between exposure to alcohol marketing and youth drinking behavior, even after controlling for a variety of variables such as parental monitoring or socioeconomic status.[10-16]

Alcohol industry spokespeople have stated that they observe a proportional standard when placing their advertising to ensure that young people are not overexposed.[17] Since 2003, industry-wide voluntary codes of good marketing practice have directed that alcohol advertisers avoid programming where underage audiences exceed 30 percent. However, the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine,[18] as well as 20 state attorneys general,[19] have suggested that a 15 percent standard, roughly proportionate to the percentage of the population between the ages of 12 and 20, would be more appropriate. In 2007, one company, Beam Global Spirits & Wine Inc., moved to a 25 percent standard, combined with a 15 percent annual aggregate average by brand and by medium. CAMY has estimated that, if adopted by the entire industry, this standard would reduce youth exposure to alcohol advertising on television by 14 percent and in magazines by more than 10 percent.[20]

 

Notes

  1. Johnston LD, O’Malley PM, Bachman JG, Schulenberg JE. Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2009. Volume I: Secondary School Students. Bethesda, MD: National Institute on Drug Abuse; 2010.
  2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Alcohol-Related Disease Impact Software. 2009: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control; available at: http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/ardi.htm. Accessed June 27, 2010.
  3. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Results from the 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Volume I. Summary of National Findings. 2010; Rockville, MD: Office of Applied Studies; available at: http://oas.samhsa.gov/NSDUH/2k9NSDUH/2k9Results.htm. Accessed October 20, 2010.
  4. Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. Drinking in America: Myths, Realities, and Prevention Policy. Calverton, MD: prepared in support of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Enforcing the Underage Drinking Laws Program, U.S. Department of Justice;2005.
  5. Gfroerer J. Re: NSDUH figure. Personal communication (e-mail) to Jernigan D, Washington, D.C. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, September 17, 2007.
  6. Grant BF, Dawson D. Age of onset of alcohol use and its association with DSM-IV alcohol abuse and dependence: Results from the National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey. Journal of Substance Abuse. 1997;9:103-110.
  7. Hingson R, Heeren T, Jamanka T, Howland J. Age of Drinking Onset and Unintentional Injury Involvement After Drinking. Washington, D.C.: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration;2001.
  8. Hingson R, Heeren T, Zakocs R. Age of drinking onset and involvement in physical fights. Pediatrics. 2001;108(4):872-877.
  9. Anderson P, De Bruijn A, Angus K, Gordon R, Hastings G. Impact of alcohol advertising and media exposure on adolescent alcohol use: a systematic review of longitudinal studies. Alcohol and Alcoholism. 2009;44(3):229-243.
  10. Collins RL, Ellickson PL, McCaffrey D, Hambarsoomians K. Early adolescent exposure to alcohol advertising and its relationship to underage drinking. Journal of Adolescent Health. Jun 2007;40(6):527-534.
  11. Snyder L, Milici F, Slater M, Sun H, Strizhakova Y. Effects of alcohol exposure on youth drinking. Archives of pediatrics and adolescent medicine. 2006;160(1):18-24.
  12. Stacy AW, Zogg JB, Unger JB, Dent CW. Exposure to televised alcohol ads and subsequent adolescent alcohol use. American Journal of Health Behavior. 2004;28(6):498-509.
  13. Pasch KE, Komro KA, Perry CL, Hearst MO, Farbakhsh K. Outdoor alcohol advertising near schools: what does it advertise and how is it related to intentions and use of alcohol among young adolescents? Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. 2007;68(4):587-596.
  14. Sargent JD, Wills TA, Stoolmiller M, Gibson J, Gibbons FX. Alcohol use in motion pictures and its relation with early-onset teen drinking. Journal of Studies on Alcohol. 2006;67(1):54-65.
  15. McClure AC, Dal Cin S, Gibson J, Sargent JD. Ownership of alcohol-branded merchandise and initiation of teen drinking. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2006;30(4):277-283.
  16. McClure AC, Stoolmiller M, Tanski SE, Worth KA, Sargent JD. Alcohol-branded merchandise and its association with drinking attitudes and outcomes in US adolescents. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. March 1, 2009 2009;163(3):211-217.
  17. Becker J. Statement of Jeff Becker, President, The Beer Institute. U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Subcommittee on Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services. 108th ed. Washington, D.C.2003.
  18. National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. Reducing Underage Drinking: A Collective Responsibility. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press; 2004.
  19. Rowe GS, Shurtleff ML, Goddard T, et al. RE: Alcohol Reports, Paperwork Comment, FTC File No. P064505. A Communication from the Chief Legal Officers of the Following States: Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wyoming [California subsequently signed on]. 2006; available at: http://www.ftc.gov/os/comments/alcoholmanufacadstudy/522852-01287.pdf. Accessed December 6, 2006.
  20. Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth. Statement: Beam Global Sprits & Wine Principles: A Strong Step to Protect Our Kids. 2007; Washington, D.C.: Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth; available at: http://www.camy.org/press/release.php?ReleaseID=39. Accessed 9 September, 2009.

 

Image Credits:

 Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth

Industry’s Charade of Advertising Self-Regulation

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

Cross-posted from Appetite for Profit.

Every so often in my work at Marin Institute, we get a complaint from someone about an alcohol advertisement they’ve seen in their community they think shouldn’t be there. Most of the time, they’re right. In the role of industry watchdog, I’ve taken on the responsibility to report such complaints to the industry directly to get the ads removed as soon as possible.

However, at Marin, we have made a deliberate decision to not use the industry’s official complaint process, because as we demonstrated with our report in 2008, it’s a failure and a charade.

Instead, when it’s a spirits ad that I think is in violation of the voluntary code, I will send an email directly to Lynne Omlie, who handles such matters for the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), the national trade group for the spirits industry.

Recently, we received an email (with the above photo) from a concerned mother about a huge Jose Cuervo ad on the side of a building in Seattle, right across the street from her son’s middle school. (The industry’s voluntary, self-regulation guidelines say that such ads must be at least 500 feet from a school, so this was a clear violation.)

I quickly forwarded the message to Lynne Omlie of DISCUS and copied Janet Evans, the attorney at the Federal Trade Commission who oversees alcohol advertising.

The good news is that the ad came down the very next day. According to this letter of apology, the ad placement was the result of an “oversight” by the billboard company, which, although it had conducted a survey of the area, somehow missed this middle school. OK, mistakes happen, problem solved.

But it didn’t stop there.

Instead of just taking care of the matter and apologizing for the blatant error, Lynne Omlie went out of her way to tell us that this complaint would be recorded as part of the official process, despite my requests that she not do so.

Why does this matter? Because now DISCUS gets to celebrate this incident as a wonderful “victory” of how well the complaint process is working. We complained, they took swift action, and so this must mean the system works, right? Wrong.

How long was the ad up? Who knows? How many other ads are out there also in violation of the 500 foot rule, all over the nation? Who knows? No one studies this in any regular or scientific manner, and yet, DISCUS gets to claim the system works. Here is what Lynne Omlie told our constituent who brought her complaint to us, not them:

Your complaint will be part of the Code’s next Semi-Annual Report and posted on the DISCUS website within the next few days. Your proactive action to address this advertisement will be highlighted in the placement tutorials at our October 18th-19th “Best Practices” Media Summit, attended by industry members from all sectors—DISCUS member distillers, non-member distillers, brewers and vintners, as well as their respective media placement companies and advertising agencies.

Translation? DISCUS will be using this unfortunate incident to celebrate how great their voluntary system is working. Indeed, it will become a case-study of success! They may even give themselves an award for “best practices,” they are so proud of themselves!

Here’s what I told Lynne Omlie in response via email:

Thank you Lynne, for your prompt attention to this matter. It is great to have such a swift resolution. However, I do need to reiterate my prior request to not turn this unfortunate situation to DISCUS’ advantage by publishing the complaint as a “victory” in your report.

All this does is further Marin Institute’s position that those reports are a complete charade. How can the self-regulatory system be viewed as a success when the only cases you report on are complaints like these? It is the exception, rather than the rule, to have people [like this woman] take the time and energy to contact us. Most people don’t know that’s even an option. She obviously had no idea how to complain to DISCUS or she would have done so directly.

Hardly an example of “Best Practices,” this complaint just raises the question, how many other ads are in violation that we will never even know about? Unless and until we have an independent, scientifically-sound monitoring system in place, we will never know the answer to that question. Thanks again for your speedy action. Now let’s just leave it at that.

But industry just can’t because they need to perpetuate the charade of self-regulation. Whether the issue is alcohol advertising or junk food marketing to kids, voluntary self-regulation is a failed system that only serves to further industry’s PR goals. Judging by this experience, it’s working like a charm.

A version of this post appeared originally on Marin Institute’s website.

 

Image Credit:

1.     Appetite for Profit

Snoop Dogg Targets Black Youth for BLAST, a Colt 45 Malt Liquor

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

In a now familiar script, Pabst Brewing Company hired the rapper Snoop Dogg to promote Blast, which Pabst describes as “a premium malt beverage with natural fruit flavors and a kick that is uniquely Colt 45.”

Blast is 12 percent alcohol by volume, more than twice most major beer brands, and is sold in 23.5-ounce cans. One can at the suggested retail price of $2.49 provides the equivalent alcohol intake of more than four 12-ounce bottles of beer. Snoop Dogg promotes Blast in a YouTube Video that manages to be offensive to women, African-Americans and young people, and in comments on Facebook and Twitter, leading a marketing campaign designed to bypass industry guidelines that restrict alcohol advertising to young people. In response, the Marin Institute, an alcohol policy and advocacy group, has launched Petition Pabst: Stop Targeting Youth, Give Snoop the Boot.

Corporate Practices in the News

Posted on by Corporations and Health Watch

In this article, we briefly describe recent health-related news on corporate practices in the alcohol, pharmaceutical, and food industries.


Alcohol

Economic crisis depresses beer sales

As the economy stagnates, the beer industry worries about falling beer sales. “They’re the worst trends we’ve ever seen,” said Benj Steinman, President of Beer Marketer’s Insights, who spoke in October at the National Beer Wholesalers Association Convention in Chicago. Steinman blamed the drop on the high jobless rates among young adult male blue-collar workers—the industry’s traditional workhorse. “If we were down another 2% next year it wouldn’t surprise me,” Harry Schuhmacher, editor of Beer Business Daily, told wholesalers. Sales of craft beers, however, continue to increase, gaining 11% so far this year as compared to last year. These trends demonstrate the deep effects the recession has on sales of alcohol, food and other products, a topic explored in a previous Corporations and Health Watch post.

Pharmaceuticals

Drug industry finds that 15-second ads don’t make the sell

To save money in a tough economy, many Big Pharma companies have shortened their direct-to-consumer television ads from 30 seconds to 15 seconds. As shown below, data compiled by Ameritest , a copy-testing firm, and Competitrack, an advertising tracking firm indicates that 15-second over-the-counter drug ads constituted 25% of drug ads in 2007, 63% last year and 65% so far this year. In the same period, Big Pharma drug makers lost market share to private label manufacturers, suggesting that shorter ads were less persuasive in winning new customers. “The companies that live and die by their advertising are stretching their budgets with 15-second ads, and frankly there’s a lot for them to learn,” said Ameritest CEO Charles Young. “It’s an awfully short form for creatives to work with. If it devolves into simply reminder advertising, you’re not building brands. You need to bring emotion and news value to those brands.”

In 2005, the drug industry spent more than $4 billion on direct-to-consumer advertising. Advertising is a tax deductible business expense and also enjoys the constitutional protection that the Supreme Court has applied to commercial speech. The rationale for such protection is that advertising helps consumers to make informed decisions. Can a 15- or 30-second ad contribute to more informed health care consumers?

Pharma spending on online advertising to reach $1 billion this year

Like the food and alcohol industries, the pharmaceutical industry is expanding its online advertising. According to a report prepared by eMarketer, online ad spending by drug companies is expected to reach $1 billion this year and keep rising through 2014. One factor slowing growth is the lack of clear guidelines for this form of advertising from the US Food and Drug Administration. A year ago, the FDA held public hearings on the topic and solicited e-mail comments. “Pharma marketers are waiting around,” said eMarketer’s Victoria Petrock, author of the report entitled DTC Pharmaceutical Marketing Online: A Slow Shift to Digital. “They are trying to test the waters but realizing that the FDA isn’t going to come down with a template or a hard-and-fast ruling. Even when that happens, there’s still going to be a process of give-and-take and experimentation.”

Food

Michelle Obama on restaurant practices

The following excerpts are from a speech Michelle Obama made in Washington, D.C. to the National Restaurant Association in September 2010:

“Together, you represent 40 percent of the nearly one million restaurants in the United States, from the biggest chains to the smallest diners. You know what Americans like to eat and what they don’t. You’ve seen how the ingredients we put in our bodies affect the way we feel and the way we feel about ourselves. And you also understand the unique role that food, and restaurants especially, play in our own lives and in the life of our nation….. And the truth is that while restaurants are offering more options and families take advantage of them more often, they aren’t always the healthiest choices…

And as America’s restaurant owners, you’re responsible for one-third of the calories our kids get on a daily basis. The choices you make determine what’s listed on the menus, what’s advertised on billboards, and what’s served on our plates.

And your decisions about how a dish is prepared, what goes into it and where is it placed on the menu, that can have a real impact on the way people eat….Together we have to do more…And we need your help to lead this effort. And today I am asking you to use that creativity to rethink the food you offer, especially dishes aimed at young people, and to help us make the healthier choice the easier choice…First, it’s important to reduce the number of empty calories that our families are consuming, calories that have no nutritional benefit whatsoever. After all, we as humans, we are programmed to crave sugary, fatty, salty foods. And as people who work to meet those needs, I know it’s tempting to respond by creating products that are sweeter, richer and saltier than ever before. But here’s the catch. See, feeding those cravings does just respond to people’s natural desires, it actually helps shape them. The more of these foods people eat, the more they’re accustomed to that taste, and after a while, those unhealthy foods become a permanent part of their eating habits.

But here’s the good news: It can work the other way around just as easily. Just as we can shape our children’s preferences for high-calorie, low-nutrient foods, with a little persistence and creativity we can also turn them on to higher quality, healthier foods.”

 

Image Credits:

  1. Grant Hutchins via Flickr
  2. Competitrack and Ameritest