Smarter drinking under the spotlight

After an incubation period of around 18 months, the industry's biggest ever anti-binge marketing campaign has finally been unveiled.

The Campaign for Smarter Drinking has been launched to much fanfare - and will see a total of 60 companies and trade groups shelling out £100m over the next five years, working in partnership with Drinkaware and the government.

From September, adverts with the simple message "Why let good times go bad?" will appear on billboards, bus stops and beer mats - to name just a few places.

But this new initiative also throws up a number of questions.

One that licensees may ask themselves is: do we really need another campaign telling people how to drink?

The government's own Know Your Limits initiative is well established, as well as the Drinkaware charity - which receives donations from the industry.

But it seems the trade had little choice after Gordon Brown summoned a number of industry chiefs to Number 10 about a year-and-a-half ago. He apparently said individual companies were doing good things individually around responsible drinking, but needed to combine their marketing clout to tackle the issue head-on.

Project 10

The chiefs came together, a plan was formulated, and given the name Project 10. And here we are 18 months later with the Campaign for Smarter Drinking.

Bruce Ray, the campaign's director, suggests it will "build on the good work" of Drinkaware and "extend its importance". "The other big difference," Ray explains, is Drinkaware "concentrates on underage drinking and long-term problem drinkers, whereas this campaign is designed to tackle the bit in-between - the young adults".

The other worry for licensees must be that another campaign of this nature will do nothing to help their drinks sales.

However, Ray stresses that the campaign is not designed to cut consumption.

"We are trying to change people's attitudes and encourage them to drink responsibly," he says.

As the Drink Smarter literature says: "The campaign will not talk down to young adults or tell them what to do, which has been shown not to work.

"Instead it will emphasise the benefits of responsible enjoyment and offer practical tips such as reminders to drink water or soft drinks, eat food and plan to get home safely."

So how exactly will the campaign work and how will its impact be assessed? All pub companies signed up will encourage their licensees to support the campaign within their pubs - with posters and beer mats. Supermarkets and shops meanwhile will have the messages at point-of-sale.

Freetrade

But Ray, who is also director of external affairs at Bacardi Brown-Forman Brands, admits it may be more difficult to persuade freetrade pubs to get involved.

"We would like to think we could encourage freetraders to support the campaign and we would like them to be part of the message," he says.

"But if an individual feels it is not an appropriate message that's understandable."

Inevitably, the campaign has already attracted a degree of cynicism. At an MP-led inquiry session into alcohol on the morning the campaign was launched, the chairman of the committee questioned the timing of it.

Chairman Kevin Barron MP said the launch brought out his "inner cynic" as it was on the day the new Public Health Minister Gillian Merron was giving evidence to the committee.

And Alcohol Concern has also been left unimpressed. Chief executive Don Shenker branded the campaign "another example of the drinks industry trying desperately to avoid mandatory legislation to pass on health information to consumers". As far as Alcohol Concern is concerned government intervention is the only way to tackle the problem.

But Ray defends the timing of the campaign. He says its launch of the day of the select committee inquiry was "totally coincidental". This is wholly believable bearing in mind the length of the time they have been planning the campaign.

And he dismisses the idea it is designed to stave off government intervention, such as minimum pricing.

"That's not the reason we are doing it," Ray says. "We have difficult problems in the industry which means that just one individual drinking too much can cause a problem for a business. We have also agreed to work with the government on this."

It's an ambitious project, but one that as far as the industry is concerned must go ahead. It's scheduled to last five years. So the big question will be whether binge-drinking is still an issue come 2014. Who knows? It may just have a new name by then…
View from the pub

Freetrader Nigel Jones at the Railway Hotel, in Blandford Forum, Dorset says he welcomes the campaign, but he was already doing plenty in his pub to push the responsible drinking message. His pub is one of only a handful in the UK with a 24-hour licence, but after 11.30pm no neat spirits and no doubles are served. And people are only allowed to buy one drink at a time for themselves. "We encourage sensible drinking and would rather people enjoy their drinks over a longer period of time. It doesn't help anyone if you have drunk customers."

But he said he would be interested in having posters from the Campaign for Smarter Drinking. "From my perspective it would just help to enforce our messages," he said.
What no Sainsbury's?

Supermarket giants Tesco, Asda and Morrisons have all signed up but Sainsbury's has snubbed the Campaign for Smarter for Drinking arguing that it "duplicates rather than furthers" its current work on the issue.

A company spokesman said: "Whilst we wholeheartedly support the principles behind this new Drinkaware campaign we feel it duplicates rather than furthers our existing work in encouraging responsible drinking, and as such we declined to participate in this specific event.

"We take our responsibilities as a licensed retailer very seriously and we have supported the Drinkaware Trust and its objectives since its inception."