NBC, With Conditions, to Accept Ads for Liquor
By STUART ELLIOTT
NYTIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/14/business/media/14ADCO.html?ex=1009347991ei=1en=20fe7addff50c348
Free Subscription Required (BLAH BLAH BLAH)
~Five years after
some liquor companies began producing television commercials for alcoholic
beverages like vodka, cordials, rum, liqueurs and Scotch whiskey, a large
national broadcast network has agreed to begin accepting those spots.
NBC, part of the General Electric Company (news/quote), said yesterday that
it would become the first of the four biggest broadcast networks to accept
commercials for distilled spirits, so-called hard liquor, since liquor marketers
lifted a voluntary ban against such spots in 1996. But the commercials must
adhere to a long list of stipulations. They will appear only after 9 p.m., for
instance; the actors in them must all be at least 30 years of age; and the
liquor makers must first run for four months a series of social-responsibility
messages on subjects like designated drivers and drinking moderately before they
can run commercials for their distilled-spirits brands.
People who oppose the move say they are concerned that the commercials
could be easily watched by youngsters.
"This is more than the camel's nose under the tent," said George Hacker,
director of the Alcohol Policies Project at the Center for Science in the Public
Interest, a consumer group in Washington. "It's the first foot forward that will
result down the line to opening the door for hard-liquor ads looking like beer
ads."
The decision by NBC, which takes effect with a commercial from the Guinness
UDV division of Diageo (news/quote) that is scheduled to run tomorrow on
"Saturday Night Live," comes as TV networks seek to reverse a steep revenue
decline that began in the spring and accelerated after Sept. 11.
The spending for the four-month series of commercials that Guinness UDV
will run before the product spots is being called a multimillion- dollar
campaign; neither the company nor NBC would be more specific.
Plans call for the commercial to be shown tomorrow night to promote
designating a driver before drinking and end with the words "From your friends
at Smirnoff," the best-selling Guinness UDV brand of vodka.
The NBC decision represents a major victory for liquor marketers seeking to
gain access to the powerful advertising medium of television along with their
traditional outlets like print ads and promotions.
"We're very pleased we have the opportunity to gain the efficiencies in our
advertising and marketing programs," said Gary Galanis, a spokesman for Guinness
UDV in Stamford, Conn.
Already, several national cable TV networks and an estimated 200 to 300
local TV stations - some owned by the broadcast networks like NBC - accept
commercials for vodka, Scotch whiskey and rum as well as for lower-alcohol
products like liqueurs and blended specialty drinks.
The newsletter Television Digest reported, for instance, that the TV
station owned by NBC in Providence, R.I., WJAR, runs commercials for Baileys
Original Irish Cream liqueur, sold by Guinness UDV. Hard- liquor brands sold by
Guinness UDV that have run TV commercials so far include José Cuervo tequila,
Malibu rum, Tanqueray gin and Johnnie Walker Black Scotch whiskey.
"There's a momentum gathering here," said Randy Falco, president for the
NBC Television Network division of NBC in New York. "We thought we'd get in
front of it" with "a pretty strict set of guidelines."
"This is obviously a sensitive subject," he added, but as for any concerns
for potential abuse, "the standards speak for themselves, particularly as they
relate to young people."
Beer and wine advertising has been on television since the medium carried
commercials. There were no such spots for liquor from 1948, when the distilled
spirits industry introduced its voluntary ban, until that ban was lifted in
November 1996.
When the ban was lifted, some members of Congress and federal regulators
sought to have it reinstated or made into law. Those efforts faded as the end of
the ban brought no flood of liquor commercials onto the broadcast networks; in
addition, the Federal Trade Commission reminded critics that any spots for hard
liquor would be subject to the same standards and scrutiny as all other ads.
According to CMR, a division of Taylor Nelson Sofres that tracks
advertising spending, in the first nine months of 2001, beer makers spent $606.7
million on local and national broadcast and cable television commercials, while
makers of wine and wine coolers spent $25.4 million and liquor makers spent
$17.1 million.
By comparison, the liquor companies spent $194.9 million to advertise in
magazines in the first nine months of 2001, according to the Publishers
Information Bureau in New York, an affiliate of the Magazine Publishers of
America.
The
