Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP) is today calling for the Scottish Government to ensure that the alcohol industry doesn’t exploit loopholes to promote their products, when plans to restrict alcohol marketing are taken forward.
In its response to the Scottish Government’s consultation on restricting alcohol marketing, SHAAP highlights the need for an evidence-based approach to protect the public from alcohol marketing and its effects, which contributes to Scotland’s ongoing alcohol crisis.
SHAAP argues that any restrictions implemented in Scotland must include a comprehensive approach to eliminate ‘alibi marketing’, such as that currently being seen in Six Nations matches in Dublin, and that the Scottish Government must learn from international experience to prevent circumvention of regulations by the alcohol industry.
SHAAP’s response makes clear that exposure to alcohol marketing directly influences how much and how often people consume alcohol, and is thus contributing to Scotland’s alcohol harms, with almost 3 deaths and 100 hospitalisations every day purely due to alcohol.
Alibi marketing – the practice of a brand using core elements of their branding such as straplines, colours, fonts and shapes, without actually advertising alcohol – is a tactic commonly employed by the alcohol industry to side-step restrictions in countries such as France and Ireland in order to continue to build brand awareness, which drives consumption of all products using that brand. SHAAP warns that this continued brand awareness – even through zero alcohol products – encourages increased alcohol consumption and harms.
The alcohol industry make use of this technique to exploit loopholes in legislation in a number of settings, most commonly through the marketing of ‘no alcohol’ products in areas where alcohol marketing is banned. This exposes huge numbers of individuals to alcohol brand marketing, including vulnerable groups such as children and people in recovery from alcohol problems.
Alibi marketing is also used extensively in stores. Following implementation of Ireland’s Public Health (Alcohol) Act in 2018, which means that alcohol must be located in a separate area within shops to protect children and young people, use of alibi marketing of alcohol brands via zero alcohol products has appeared in shops. This means that children and young people, and people in recovery are exposed to alcohol brand marketing.
SHAAP Chair, Dr Alastair MacGilchrist said:
“We know from international examples that the alcohol industry will exploit any loopholes in regulation and the Scottish Government must ensure that whatever restrictions they take forward, they do not allow the alcohol industry to do this in Scotland.
“Zero alcohol products are simply an extension of alcohol brands, and should not be treated as a separate entity. The profits from these products still go back to the harmful commodities industry and the ability to market these products will only further brand recognition and contribute to the devastating alcohol harms we are experiencing in Scotland.
“We know that Scotland is facing a crisis with alcohol and that alcohol marketing is contributing to this. The Scottish Government must implement a comprehensive package of measures to restrict alcohol promotion, and it is absolutely essential that this includes a ban on alibi marketing.”
Sheila Gilheany, CEO of Alcohol Action Ireland commented:
“Following the passage of the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018 and the implementation of measures in 2019 to prohibit alcohol advertising in a number of settings, we immediately began to see the emergence of widespread alibi marketing or brand sharing in Ireland.
“The alcohol industry appeared to simply reallocate their resources into promoting their zero alcohol products to continue to market their brands. Despite the introduction of the Public Health Alcohol Act, we see the same brands being promoted in the same settings, just with a zero alcohol product replacement. This totally undermines the objective of these measures, which were introduced to reduce exposure of the public to alcohol marketing.
“I would urge the Scottish Government to learn from this in any restrictions on alcohol marketing, and specifically legislate against alibi marketing, as had been done in Norway, to achieve true public health gains.”