New Smirnoff site raises eyebrows over advertising alcohol to underage drinkers

Public interest groups are crying foul over a new Canadian web site promoting Smirnoff-brand vodka beverages because of its apparent appeal to kids too young to drink. The Media Awareness Network tells Canadian NEW MEDIA that the site typifies a longstanding complaint against the alcohol industry – that it can use cyberspace to promote alcohol to kids without the burden of regulation. The CRTC has forborne from regulating the Internet for the time being, and advertising of alcohol, tobacco and other adult material is currently running in a vacuum. For its part, Excite.ca, the web host for the site, says the site doesn’t deliberately target underage drinkers, but whenever lifestyle advertising is used for any brand, the potential for cross-appeal is always present. The site, at http://smirnoff.excite.ca, features music-related content; contests; polls comparing various attractive women; fashion and extreme sports. The content, says the Media Awareness Network’s Jane Tallim, a media education specialist, is formulaic and seen across other sites such as Beer.com and those promoting Malibu rum and Cuervo Gold tequila. "It’s a whole package of sports and chat and the sophomoric humour and the babes – you’ll find the babes on a lot of alcohol sites now – and it’s very, very strategic marketing because they could easily say, ‘Oh, it’s college grads. We’re not targeting teens." Grant Packard, marketing manager for Excite.ca, says that’s exactly the case. "The target audience for this is the urban nightlife club-goer, which is very urban – it’s extreme sports, it’s the rave club scene, and it does have a crossover group that is probably below 19," he says. "But, obviously, it’s not in Smirnoff’s interest or in ours to speak to that group because we can’t sell them alcohol. The products that appeal to them are going to the younger groups as well, which is true of pretty much every lifestyle brand in that space. "It’s always sticky when you’re dealing with thin categories like this – tobacco or alcohol or gambling for that matter," Packard says. He adds that the site has been approved by Ontario’s Alcohol and Gaming Commission as well as the Broadcast Clearance Advisory, an industry self-regulatory group that took over the function of clearing advertisements from the CRTC in 1997. Besides having those approvals, the site is also limited to those of legal drinking age in the province or territory where it’s being viewed. While "click-wrap" agreements such as that protecting the site from those under 18 or 19 have come under fire in the past, especially in the iCraveTV.com Inc. case, Internet legal expert Michael Geist says it’s likely Smirnoff and Excite have done their homework. "I would assume, in the case of this particular site, that some kind of legal risk analysis has been done – a look at the law and a feeling that this is sufficient to meet the standards of the law." Geist says concerned advertisers will eventually be able to screen out visitors too young or of the wrong nationality to visit when individuals have privacy-protected "attribute certificates" sometime in the future. Tallim says dealing with sites with adult content, especially alcohol, has been a thorny issue in Canada since the Internet’s ascent as an advertising medium. While there’s been no legislative push to solve the problem in this country, she notes that in the U.S. there has been a more concerted effort by organizations such as the Center for Media Education (CME). The CME has written several seminal reports on the subject, including 1997’s Alcohol and Tobacco on the Web: New Threats to Youth. The Media Awareness Network has also published on the subject, including ABSOLUTe Concern, which highlighted games suitable for the under-12 crowd glorifying drinking, recipes for "bridge" drinks, cross-marketing alcoholic beverages with youth-oriented celebrities, and links to concerts, sporting events and other sites that would appeal to young people.

New Smirnoff site raises eyebrows over advertising alcohol to underage drinkers

Broadcast | 11/02/2001 5:00 am EST

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