Rolande Anderson takes issue with the drinks industry's approach to advertising alcohol
How do they get away with it? Is there anyone out there who cares? These sorts of questions have been irritating me so much that I wrote this article. I am sick, to the point of nausea, of disingenuous bland advertisements in all forms of the media regarding alcohol.
The drinks industry and its puppet organisation, Meas (Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society), have a proliferation of messages that are allegedly designed to help us think about our drinking and to encourage us to drink more moderately. So we have ads that go like: "enjoy/drink such and such sensibly/ moderately/responsibly"; "don't see a great night wasted" and variations.
This trend is catching on too and I recently heard some other product being similarly advertised. Soon we will have "enjoy beans sensibly" or "drive cars moderately".
Alcohol is "no ordinary commodity" as the excellent book by Tom Babor et al reminds us and the industry is in a classic double bind.
On the one hand, it wants to sell its products, maximise profits, sponsor sport and music and TV programmes etc, while on the other hand it wants to be seen to be behaving responsibly.
It worries about retribution and State control. In particular, it fears health taxes, bans on advertising, and lawsuits by individuals and families harmed by its products. It is concerned about future profits and the tide turning, as it did with tobacco. So it solves this dilemma by trite, meaningless, sound bite advertisements. It calls it social responsibility.
Let us have a closer look at such bottled messages. "Enjoy xxxx sensibly" is just one example. I have numerous problems with such ads. Who is the target audience? Is it the general population, young people and children, pregnant women, people drinking on their own, people drinking in the morning, people who are alcohol dependent, people who are in recovery - because they all see and hear them? And what is sensible drinking?
There are no limits given, daily or weekly, no advice proffered and no exceptional circumstances.
Another problem is the actual language used. The ad contains another double bind. "Enjoy drinking" is one instruction and "drink sensibly" is a separate one.
Psychologists tell us that we only remember the first bit of any such instructions. For example, on the golf course, golfers among the readers will understand, if you stand on the tee with water in front and your last thought before hitting is "don't hit it into the water", that's exactly where you end up. So the message most of us hear and see is "enjoy drinking".
I understand that ads have to be short. I know that it is not easy to get a quick slogan to prevent alcohol-related harm. For example, it would be difficult to include the following: "Don't drink to the point that you don't know what you are doing, that you try to climb over a barbed wire fence or swim across a river or kick someone violently or get so depressed that you might contemplate suicide" or "never, ever get into a car when you are drunk, not even as a passenger, because passengers who are drunk can cause fatal accidents".
Yet we have seen excellent counter advertising.
Today FM radio presenter Ray D'Arcy, in conjunction with an advertising agency, has commissioned brilliant hard-hitting radio advertisements to discourage drinking and driving that appear to be effective.
Every day of my working life I see the devastating effects of alcohol on the lives of individuals, families and communities. Heavy drinking has been normalised in our society and there are truly awful consequences for the way we live. Absenteeism, industrial accidents, domestic violence, street aggression, marital breakdown, sexually transmitted infections, unintended pregnancies, abortions, homicides, suicides, psychiatric illness, insomnia, hypertension (and loads of other physical conditions), road traffic accidents, personal misery, family disharmony, addiction, attendances at A&E, and hospitalisations are the dreadful prices we pay for our national problem.
The causes and solutions to our drinking culture are complex. We need a Noel Browne type of politician who will lead us out of the current situation. We also require goodwill, Government intervention, public support and ongoing commitment.
Let's start with a small gesture and get rid of the pithy public messages from the industry. Public health messages are best left in the hands of the appropriate professionals and those with no profit motives. If you agree with these sentiments, please do complain. Write to the newspapers and other media outlets that carry such ads, to the advertising standard authorities and to your politicians. The vested interests must not be allowed to get away with such bottled messages.
Rolande Anderson is an alcohol counsellor and also director of the programme Helping Patients with Alcohol Problems with the Irish College of General Practitioners.