Under the influence

Promoting certain product categories come with greater responsibility – alcohol is certainly one of them. The old adage ‘a picture tells a thousand words’ was never more true than when creating social media content promoting alcohol - even the more subliminal messaging in a post can lead to issues.

In Australia The Responsible Alcohol Marketing Scheme -  The ABAC Scheme - operates as a quasi-regulatory system with consumer complaints handled by an independent committee. You can find the details of the ABAC Code here.

A review of the brand content that’s been deemed to not meet the ABAC Code confirms a few key pointers to consider when producing social media content promoting alcohol.

Conduct due diligence:

Covering off the right steps in the selection and briefing process can prevent issues and pain later. Here are some things to consider:

• Ensure appropriate talent vetting is done - validate they are the appropriate age - the code requires advertising talent be 25 years of age+

• Check their audience profile, you want a solid proportion over 25 years of age

• Assess the influencer’s social feeds to ensure they align with the client’s brand values

• Check with the influencer for any prior commercial partnerships that may raise conflicts

• Get across the ABAC Code and ensure you brief influencer talent appropriately

• Ensure you have the right campaign agreement in place

• Ensure a process to vet the content prior to going live for final brand safety checks

Be clear on age parameters:

The ABAC code stipulates that talent shown consuming alcohol must be 25 years of age. If the promotion includes children in the images or video you must ensure it is done in a manner where there is no implication they will consume or serve alcohol.

Age-Gate to ensure minors are excluded:

The ABAC Panel continues to find Instagram ads and influencer posts that breach the code in terms of audience targeting. Alcohol cannot be promoted to minors in Australia, that means not promoting to people under the age of 18 years, but in other countries the minimum age is older. Setting appropriate age-gate parameters on social media platforms is imperative.   

Context and Setting:

With imagery be conscious of the context and settings in which you show alcohol being consumed, for example showing a young guy with a can of beer behind the wheel of a car, even if it’s stationary, is an obvious problem. This may seem a no-brainer and yet one brand did exactly that in some social posts. Driving under the influence of alcohol is strictly governed so it’s especially important for alcohol brands to ensure their marketing is responsible with regard to driving under the influence.

Given alcohol not only reduces inhibitions, but also physical and mental alertness, settings where it could imply encouragement of risky behaviour are also no-go zones. This means even healthy sporting activities such as swimming, skiing, surfing, roller blading and other activities that require skill need to be considered with care when married with alcohol promotion.

Responsible Messaging - how the alcohol is being consumed:

Young people are more inclined to consume alcohol at risky levels so the content should not encourage or endorse this. This is shown to be a key issue in complaints made to ABAC. The code stipulates:

• Alcohol promotion must not show or encourage the excessive or rapid consumption, misuse or abuse of alcohol.

• Likewise, posts must not imply that drinking alcohol will contribute to a significant change in mood or be therapeutic or an aid to relaxation.

• Nor can there be an implication that alcohol contributes to the achievement of personal, business, social, sporting, sexual or other success.

In early 2020 Pirate Life Beer were cited for multiple breaches of the ABAC Code. The ABAC Panel found that Pirate Life Beer YouTube video depicting a man attempting to ‘shotgun’ a beer and the Instagram post (below) showing a man attempting to pour a beer into another man’s mouth breached the Code by implying rapid consumption and irresponsible behaviour related to alcohol consumption.

Note this Pirate Life Beer post no longer exists. The company removed the posts on being notified of the complaint.

Not blurring the lines – Ad Disclosure:

The AiMCO Code of Practice sets out the appropriate approach for advertising disclosure and this is especially important when it comes to alcohol. Clear disclosure requires the use of #Ad. The use of more obscure hashtags such as #partner or #spon are ambiguous and not adequate. Alternatively utilise platform advertising disclosure tools such as Facebook/ Instagram Branded Content tool.

Back in 2019 VicHealth did a study that looked at Australia’s top 70 influencers and found that disclosure that they had been paid to endorse the product was not always in place:

• A total of 73 per cent of top influencers featured alcoholic drinks in their Instagram accounts in the past year. But only 26 per cent featured a fully disclosed sponsored alcohol collaboration with a brand.

• Of the likely sponsored mentions (12 per cent), 61 per cent were disclosed and 39 per cent were undisclosed, meaning they did not feature a hashtag such as #sponsored ad or #collab nor used the ‘Paid partnership’ option for brands on Instagram.

Fast forward to 2021 and the industry is no doubt better at ad disclosure but we still have a way to go.

For more information go to The ABAC Scheme

The ABAC Management Committee includes industry, advertising and government representatives and reports quarterly on ads reviewed to determine if they meet the ABAC Code. You can find determinations to complaints here. Full quarterly reports from the ABAC Committee can be found here.