Ban these sick booze ads (says publicity-hungry pressure group)
Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Alcohol Concern says it wants to ban all adverts for booze before the watershed in order “to give parents the peace of mind of knowing that their children can be kept safe from the influence of advertising”.
I have a few problems with this entire line of reasoning. Firstly, how many kids decide they want to get sloshed because they’ve seen some advert on TV? Have you ever been approached by a scrawny 14-year-old outside Bargain Booze begging you to buy them three bottles of Magners because they “really like the brand positioning”?
Secondly, how many children in their teens do you know who stop watching TV at 9pm? Is it not the case that the majority of pissed-up youngsters have television sets in their bedrooms? (Note to Alcohol Concern: TV sets are quite cheap these days and there’s this thing called Sky Multiroom.)
Thirdly, how many kids actually watch TV at all? I’m no expert but I swear I recently read several hundreds of articles (probably in the Guardian or something) stating that all kiddywinks spend their entire lives on the internet and mobile phones, doing social networking and… stuff. They aren’t sitting in watching bloody TV adverts.
Obviously I’m being flippant. But, really, I can’t see how TV advertising is the root of the problem. Surely the fact that shops are selling beer to kids in the first place is more of a pressing concern.
Anyway… Pint? Anyone?
No. 1 — August 30th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
If they used ‘cheap but with high alcohol content’ as a USP for a particular brand then I could understand the reasoning.