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While brewers and distillers may try to put a sober face on spring break, the rite has become a national symbol of teenage alcohol abuse. Students interviewed in Daytona Beach last week said they planned to drink as much as a case of beer every day. Health experts and worried parents blame overzealous advertisers for such youthful excess. Studies cited by the National Council on Alcoholism show that American children see 100,000 TV commercials for beer before they reach age 18, and usually take their first drink by age twelve.
Brewers and distillers fear that their critics may be as successful as the antismoking groups that have sharply curbed tobacco marketing over the past 25 years. After requiring warning labels on cigarette packages in 1965, Congress ) in 1971 banned radio and TV cigarette ads. Says John Ferrell, chief creative officer of the Hill, Holliday agency: "I was working on the Marlboro campaign when the TV-advertising ban came down. I think the same thing is going to happen with beer and wine. It is inevitable." Brewers are especially worried about curbs on broadcast ads, since their primary target group of young men is best reached through TV.
The movement is gaining force in Europe as well. The French government plans to ban all tobacco advertising by 1993 and to restrict alcohol ads to print media. The European Community has called for a ban on TV commercials for tobacco products. Asia has generally been slower to put limits on tobacco and alcohol, but a health movement is beginning to spring up at least partly in response to the arrival of U.S. tobacco marketers.
The new outcry presents a dilemma for cigarette makers, brewers and distillers. If they fight the tide too strenuously, they risk further damage to their public image. But if they reduce their advertising profile too readily, their outlets for marketing could be extremely limited. In their defense, tobacco- and alcohol-industry groups contend that curbs on advertising violate their First Amendment rights to advertise products that are, after all, legal. "These warning-label bills are just another attempt to get around that," says Lauria, the Tobacco Institute spokesman.
The recent outburst against vice marketing seems motivated by a larger social movement, suddenly abloom at the turn of the decade, in which citizens are demanding more socially responsible behavior from individuals and corporations alike. In a fashion, the spirit of the war on drugs has carried over to legal but abusable substances.
Alcohol marketers say the association is unfair. "The advertising issue is primarily an attempt to deal with today's drug abuse, but I'm afraid it misses the mark," says Jeff Becker, a spokesman for the Beer Institute.