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EUCAM Newsletter May 2020 - Updates on alcohol marketing
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EUCAM collects, exchanges and promotes news and knowledge about the impact of
alcohol marketing and alcohol marketing regulation throughout Europe. Visit the website of EUCAM: www.eucam.info 

Call for Stricter Alcohol Policy in Slovenia

Total Slovenian News; , 02 Jun 2020

The association of chronic non-contagious diseases urged on Monday the Health Ministry, the government and National Assembly to introduce stricter measures concerning alcohol policy and to strive for a joint systemic tackling of heavy alcohol consumption in Slovenia, most notably efforts mitigating the situation among the young.

The organisation, bringing together  a number of public health NGOs, has highlighted that youths are the primary target market of the alcohol industry.

Today’s appeal to the authorities coincided with the release of the Slovenian translation of Olivier van Beemen’s book titled Heineken in Africa.

The Dutch investigative journalist reveals unethical strategies and practices of the alcohol industry in Africa in the book, reads the association’s press release.

Such practices are not only a problem of the third world, but are also very much present in Slovenia, highlighted the NGOs.

Slovenia ranks among countries with the highest alcohol consumption rate per adult on average. The World Health Organisation has notified Slovenia on a number of occasions that the country is lagging behind most advanced countries in this area and that it is high time Slovenia stepped up its alcohol policy.

The association believes that Slovenia should raise alcohol prices and ban relevant marketing, including online advertising. Moreover, event sponsorship by the alcohol business should be banned and the sales restriction for underage or inebriated persons should be strictly implemented.

Online sales and home deliveries should be banned as well, in particular during times of epidemics or similar extreme circumstances, and zero-tolerance policy should be imposed regarding drinking and driving.

The association deems that the damage done by alcohol in society overrides any potential financial benefits of selling alcoholic beverages.

An inefficient alcohol policy increases the burden on healthcare, the police, judiciary, social work organisations and local communities, and deteriorates people’s health and well-being, reads the press release.

original article

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After lockdown: Four expert tips for a more sober South Africa


BHEKISISA, Centre for Health Journalism,
By Joan van Dyk, 28 May 2020

South Africa has a drinking problem but research reveals a few things that could help curb harmful alcohol use in the country.

South Africa banned the sale of alcohol early in its response to the coronavirus pandemic to free up hospital beds. Now, as the country moves towards easing its lockdown ban on liquor sales in June, public health experts say it’s an opportunity to promote responsible drinking in South Africa.  

Every day, an average of 171 people in South Africa die from alcohol-related causes, a 2018 study published in the journal BMC Medicine found. And, although recent data is scarce, 2009 projections from the South African Medical Journal shows alcohol-related harms could cost the economy R263-billion annually. 

On 1 June, limited alcohol sales for home consumption will resume in the country after a two-month hiatus during the country’s coronavirus lockdown. Restaurants and bars will remain closed, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced last week.  

All this harmful alcohol use does not have to return, says Zane Dangor, a special advisor in the department of international relations and cooperative governance. Dangor was the special advisor to former Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini when she led the interministerial committee to combat substance abuse. 

 “We will never have an alcohol-free society. It’s about having good regulations. The post-covid world should be led by evidence.”

Here are four things the government can do to help build a safer South Africa.

1. Ban the sale of beer in larger containers

2. Find out what the people want

3. Ban alcohol advertising except in shops or online sites
   where liquor is sold

4. Make it easier for people with alcohol use disorders to get help

Read the complete text here

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This study shows how television ads of alcohol products influence drinking behavior

Mental Daily, 20-05-2020

A new study published by Cornell University examined more than 200 individual media markets throughout the 2010s.

In 2012, many Americans were exposed to hundreds of television ads of alcohol products. A new study published by Cornell University examined more than 200 individual media markets throughout that year and found a correlation with drinking behavior.


The findings, posted online in the peer-reviewed journal Addiction, demonstrated that the more ads of alcoholic beverages shown, the more consumption of alcohol. Repeated exposure may reinforce drinking behavior.

In the study, conducted between 2010 to 2013, commercial data of broadcasting advertisements, featuring beer, wine, and hard liquor, were analyzed alongside data of the Simmons National Consumer Survey.

In that survey, over 50,000 adults inputted their drinking and television viewing habits. The data provided insight into the form of drinking ads shown during their television consumption.

“These ads are so ubiquitous, especially for certain types of audiences, that this cumulative, repeated exposure seems to have the potential to reinforce the behavior,” said Jeff Niederdeppe, in a news release. “Higher exposure to the ads is clearly and consistently linked to higher levels of drinking.”

As part of their findings, they determined that men were more exposed to beer commercials compared to women. Wine ads correlated with women significantly more than men, however, the number of those ads were fewer than beer ads.

“The average respondent was exposed to an estimated 576 televised alcohol advertisements in the year preceding their survey,” according to the study’s co-authors. “Exposure was higher among males versus females and African Americans versus whites.”

“There appears to be a small but consistent positive association between alcohol advertising exposure and drinking behavior among American adults.”

The patterns of drinking behavior observed in the study were consistent across all demographic groups and forms of alcohol.

Original article

Link to another article
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The Relationship Between Exposure to Alcohol Marketing and Underage Drinking Is Causal

 

2020 Mar;Sup 19:113-124.;

Sargent JD1, Babor TF2

Abstract

 

OBJECTIVE:

This article summarizes the findings of narrative and systematic literature reviews focused on the relationship between exposure to alcohol marketing and youth drinking, viewed in context of criteria for causality. We also consider the implications of this proposition for alcohol policy and public health.

METHOD:

Our descriptive synthesis of findings is from 11 narrative and systematic reviews using the nine Bradford Hill causality criteria: (a) strength of association, (b) consistency, (c) specificity of association, (d) temporality, (e) biological gradient, (f) biological plausibility, (g) coherence, (h) experimental evidence, and (i) analogy.

RESULTS:

Evidence of causality for all nine of the Bradford Hill criteria was found across the review articles commissioned for this supplement and in other previously published reviews. In some reviews, multiple Bradford Hill criteria were met. The reviews document that a substantial amount of empirical research has been conducted in a variety of countries using different but complementary research designs.

CONCLUSIONS:

The research literature available today is consistent with the judgment that the association between alcohol marketing and drinking among young persons is causal.

link to original news item

Alcohol ad every 35 seconds during COVID-19

 

Fare  13-05-2020

A new report has been released today showing the extent to which the alcohol industry is using the COVID-19 pandemic to market their products.

In just one hour on a Friday night, 107 sponsored alcohol advertisements were displayed on a person’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, which equates to approximately one alcohol advertisement every 35 seconds.

Cancer Council WA Alcohol Program Manager Julia Stafford says there were six key marketing messages identified in the sample of alcohol advertisements analysed in the report:

  • get easy access to alcohol without leaving your home (58%)
  • save money (55%)
  • buy more (35%)
  • drink alcohol during the COVID-19 pandemic (24%)
  • use alcohol to cope, ‘survive’, or feel better (16%)
  • and choose ‘healthier’ alcohol products (14%).

“Over 100 alcohol ads in one hour demonstrates the relentlessness of digital alcohol marketing during the COVID-19 restrictions. Many of these ads promoted buying more alcohol and drinking alcohol to cope or ‘survive’ isolation and the pandemic,” Ms Stafford said.

“With phrases like ‘wine from home’, ‘Stay in. Drink up’, and ‘confinement sale’, it’s evident the alcohol industry is using a global health crisis to its advantage,” she said.

Nearly three-quarters of alcohol ads (71%) explicitly or implicitly referenced the COVID-19 pandemic, while two-thirds (66%) had a ‘shop now’ or ‘get offer’ button linking directly to their online store.

Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education CEO Caterina Giorgi says people are being bombarded with unrelenting alcohol advertising encouraging people to drink at a time when people are socially isolated, feeling anxious and facing economic uncertainty.

“This study shows that alcohol companies are taking advantage of people’s fear and anxiety by urging us to drink alcohol to cope with isolation. This is all happening while people’s lives have been turned upside down because of COVID-19,” Ms Giorgi said.

Shanna Whan is from rural NSW and founded a grassroots bush charity called Sober in the Country after her experience with alcohol dependence. Shanna leads conversations to break down stigma and drive cultural change around alcohol use.

“I am disheartened by the alcohol industry’s shameless push to get their product and their advertising into every single home while we are in lockdown. It is literally everywhere, every day,” Ms Whan said.

“I am genuinely fatigued and heartbroken by the constant social media posts glorifying coping with ISO by getting drunk because I know the crushing weight it’s adding to our most vulnerable; like those in early recovery, or shaky sobriety, or those who don’t even yet know they’re becoming dependent drinkers,” she said.

Ms Stafford says the way the alcohol industry has utilised this difficult time to market their products shows significant flaws in the alcohol industry’s self-regulatory scheme in Australia, the Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code (ABAC) Scheme.

“The marketing practices of the alcohol industry during the pandemic show that the way that we regulate alcohol advertising in Australia is broken. The industry cannot be trusted to regulate their own marketing,” Ms Stafford said.

view media release in pdf
view the report 
Link to related article 
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 EUCAM aims to disseminate impact research on alcohol marketing and encourages the monitoring of alcohol marketing.

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European Centre for Monitoring Alcohol Marketing (EUCAM)
P.O. box 9769 | 3506 GT | Utrecht | The Netherlands

T: +31 (0)30 6565 041  | www.EUCAM.info; @EUCAM1

Visit www.EUCAM.INFO for all recent information about alcohol marketing

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Copyright © 2020 European Centre for Monitoring Alcohol Marketing, All rights reserved.


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