Vol.10 No.5

Drunk with Profits
The few corporate giants who control world alcohol markets are getting richer by exploiting the poor and gullible.
By Betsy Mayer

When Michael Pfleger began pastoring on Chicago’s South Side, he couldn’t help but notice the billboards advertising tobacco and alcohol. There were 118 of them in a ten block radius surrounding his St. Sabina Catholic Church and its 515-student school, both of which were predominantly Black. Five minutes away in the White, middle-class neighborhood of his childhood, there were only three billboards.

Why were the alcohol and tobacco giants targeting St. Sabina’s neighborhood?

He soon discovered the reason. When White neighborhoods had protested, the companies were intimidated enough to remove their advertising. Obviously, St. Sabina’s neighborhood wasn’t generating that kind of intimidation.

The thought of those 118 powerful persuaders influencing “his children,” most of whom came from single-parent families, mobilized Pfleger. Through prayer, petitions, and protests, he and a core of church members sought to create similar intimidation.

After months of seemingly fruitless efforts, Pfleger and his band of believers took a different kind of action and under cover of night painted billboards with red paint. Not surprisingly, Pfleger was charged with destruction of private property. At a jury trial he was acquitted on the grounds that the messages on the billboards were worse than the paint!

Yet, as gratifying as his acquittal was, the billboards remained and so did the battle. Incredibly, it took Pfleger a total of fourteen years to win the billboard battle. Finally he convinced Mayor Daley, and with the mayor’s backing, the city council voted unanimously to ban all alcohol and tobacco advertising in residential neighborhoods citywide! The alcohol and tobacco companies are suing, but Pfleger believes the city will prevail, even if it has to go to the U.S. Supreme Court.¹

Pfleger’s story partially illustrates the real agenda of corporate alcohol. On the surface, the industry portrays itself as a sober patron of responsible drinking. But closer inspection reveals its not-so-hidden agenda: to expand its markets among the gullible and poor—in third world and former Communist countries and among the youth and minorities in first world countries.

The Thirst for New Markets

Alcohol consumption has declined in all developed countries (excluding Japan), largely due to the health trend of the ‘80s.² From a pure business standpoint, global expansion is necessary for continued profits; but, alcohol is not just any market commodity. And, unfortunately, the markets targeted for aggressive promotion are also some of the most vulnerable for alcohol abuse.

World alcohol production is dominated by a few multinational corporations which provide each other with privileged access to world markets.³ These alcohol barons have the finances and experience to mount aggressive marketing campaigns to establish brand loyalty in new markets.

Even though only a third of their revenues are earned overseas, these multinationals influence the image and sales of alcohol products the world over.⁴ Buying a multinational’s brand is associated with prestige and status. In developing economies, these products can sometimes command anywhere from a day’s to a week’s wages in price. Their high prices actually increase the overall sale and consumption of alcohol by fostering demand for local imitations of global brands.

Beer, the least expensive multinational product, is the fastest growing liquor in the global market.⁵ Not only is it more affordable, it’s also the preferred alcoholic beverage among young people and women, a growing class of drinkers the multinationals are aggressively targeting.⁶

Because of beer’s lower alcohol content, it’s promoted as a “safe” liquor. However, most beer drinkers drink to intoxication.⁷ Additonally, beer is a gateway beverage to heavier drinks and illicit drugs.⁸

The following examples highlight the global alcohol crisis multinational corporations are causing in the promotion of all forms of liquor.

Emerging Economies

Alcohol is not a new product in developing economies. What is new is the high-powered marketing of global brands which equate wealth, prestige, and well-being with the use of alcohol.

The rise of the beer market in Estonia, a Baltic nation, illustrates how corporate marketing changes drinking habits. Prior to its independence from the USSR in 1991, Estonia’s drinking traditions mirrored the practices of Russia, a nation of heavy drinkers. Vodka was the beverage of choice; young people copied the drinking habits of adults; women drank significantly less than men; and beer was a cultural symbol of weakness.⁹

But after independence, Nordic multinationals promoted Western beer as the beverage of choice for a progressive, youthful culture. Beer became so popular that even Estonia’s unpopular national brands enjoyed a huge revival.¹⁰ In 1995, along with the rise in beer sales came an overall rise in crime, and a 250% increase in juvenile arrests for drunkeness!¹¹

An alcohol promotion in Malaysia illustrates how advertisers thrive on consumer gullibility. The supermarket campaign for  D.O.M. Benedictine, a multinational liqueur with 40% alcohol content, features a new mother and baby with this caption, “You know it’s good.” The ad continues: “Mothers in confinement turn to D.O.M. Benedictine to restore their health. That’s because it’s made up of twenty herbs and spices that promote blood circulation and vitality.… What’s more, D.O.M. Benedictine helps give you a heartier appetite and greater resistance to colds and indigestion. D.O.M. Benedictine is simply full of goodness.”¹²

But perhaps the most heart-rending example of what alcohol does in developing countries comes from a young father in Zambia: “We have no water, no light, no schools, no washing facilities; but the municipality says that they will build a beer hall for us. If we drink beer, the municipality can earn money so that one day we will have a water pipe. How much beer do I have to drink before my children can have water?”¹³

The Youth Market

To stay in business, alcohol companies must appeal to the next generation of drinkers. However, in most developed countries, targeting teens with overt alcohol advertising is neither socially acceptable nor legal. The big-name alcohol barons not only comply with these restrictions, but profess serious concern for “underage” drinking. Yet in many developing and post-Communist countries, few structures exist to regulate the alcohol industry’s efforts to target youth.

In 1994, Anheuser-Busch (ranked number one in global profits) announced partnerships with the largest brewers in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Brazil’s number two brewer (ranked number fifteen globally), brews and markets A-B’s Budweiser. A similar arrangement exists with an Argentinean brewer. According to A-B’s vice president of the North, Central, and South American regions, these countries are attractive because “they have much younger populations than North America…” ¹⁴ What he didn’t add was that, unlike the U.S. market, A-B would have nearly unhindered marketing access to those younger populations.

Even though global producers cannot promote underage drinking to U.S. youth, they are actively promoting their image and products to them. Alcohol companies own U.S. theme parks. They are major endorsers of U.S. sporting events. But their hit promotions are in TV advertising where sports and beer are synonymous.

Does this “low-key” marketing work? The greatest amount of television viewing in the U.S. takes place among children and young adolescents and peaks around age twelve.¹⁵ No wonder the television commercial with the highest product and jingle recall for American boys, ages nine to eleven, is Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser frogs. For girls the same age, only Bugs Bunny is higher.¹⁶ A 1990 survey found that 56% of students in Grades 5 through 12 said alcohol advertising encourages them to drink.¹⁷ That the majority of youth have tried alcohol by their thirteenth birthday should come as no surprise!¹⁸

While drinking has declined among Americans as a whole, not so with American youth. Most do their heaviest drinking before turning twenty-one.¹⁹ That’s before many states actually consider them “legal drinkers!” Alcohol is the drug of choice among American youth.²⁰ It is used 2.5 times more than cigarettes, and 3.5 times more than marijuana by college students, ages nineteen to twenty-two.²¹ Thirty-seven percent of male and twenty percent of female twelfth graders reported drinking five or more drinks in a row (binging) within the two weeks prior to a 1994 survey.²² Binge drinking remains a serious health risk among young adults and is associated with physical and sexual assault, unplanned and unprotected sex, criminal behavior, poor academic performance, road fatalities, and suicide. Drunk teen drivers kill 2,000 Americans a year.²³

The most perplexing aspect of underage drinking in the U.S. is the lack of adult outrage! Recently, the U.S. tobacco industry has taken a serious social and legal beating for targeting minors, and Joe Camel has been exposed and banished for deception. Strangely, the Budweiser frog still gets to go to the Super Bowl. Yet, ask parents what would be worse for their child—addiction to cigarettes or addiction to alcohol?

Minorities

Pfleger’s fourteen-year billboard battle illustrates how important minority markets are to the alcohol barons. Among minorities, multinationals find the same ingredients for marketing success: a large youth market, a fierce desire to emulate wealthier classes, and a less educated consumer base.

Brands with ethnic names and personas are the new strategy in minority marketing. An example is “Phat Boy,” a malt liquor in a 40 oz. container with added ginseng (considered an aphrodisiac). “Phat” is an urban phrase which means “cool” or “hip” and is used primarily by Black high school and early twenty-year-olds who listen to “hip hop” music. The beverage’s producer, United States Beverage Company, claims that it isn’t targeting young Blacks, despite the use of them in Phat Boy’s advertising.²⁴

The fastest growing minority in the U.S. is Hispano/Latinos. With 33% of its population under age 15, the alcohol industry is strategically building a strong Latino drinking culture.²⁵ A recent poll of Hispanic teenagers reported that their second most popular TV commercial was Budweiser’s frogs. Only Taco Bell’s “Chihuahua” spot was more popular.²⁶

Neither Blacks nor Hispanics need the consequences of more alcohol in their culture. Inducing them to consume more only further deprives them of socio-economic stability.

The same week a Washington, D.C. inner city police officer was slain in a drug-related incident, a Washington Post editorialist exposed a new gin targeted for Black, inner city males. Commenting on its marketing executives, he writes:

“This week brought evidence that scowling, slouching, gun-toting street dudes aren’t the only takers who would feed upon a community already ravaged by cumulative disasters. We also have to contend with smiling, well groomed, businesslike exploiters who come across as the embodiment of propriety and good taste, but leave a trail of deterioration in their wake as harmful as the distress created by coarse, undisciplined small-time hustlers. Their weapons are craftiness and slick marketing plans holstered in attaché cases.”²⁷

Conclusion

What should we do when confronted with wolves in sheep’s clothing? We can continue to admire their wool and allow them access to lush pastures with other sheep the world over. Or, we can confront them for who they are and demand responsibility.

In the judgment, God will hold nations, corporations, churches and individuals accountable for the moral, social and political influence they could have wielded to protect the smallest and frailest member of humanity. To those who neglected Him in the person of the poor, the hungry, the disadvantaged, He says, “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment … ” (Matthew 25:45, 46).

References:

1. The Bottom Line, Vol. 19, No. 3, Fall 1998, pp. 41-44.
2. David H. Jernigan, Thirsting for Markets, The Marin Institute, 1997, p. 1.
3. Ibid., pp. 12, 17.
4. Ibid., p. 7.
5. Ibid., p. 73.
6. Ibid. p. 73, 74.
7. Ibid. p. 72.
8. The Bottom Line, Vol. 20, No. 2, Summer 1999, pp. 90-93.
9. See reference 2., pp. 58-72.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., p. 71.
12. Ibid., p. 36.
13. Ibid., p. 57
14. Ibid., p. 13.
15. Laurie Leiber, “Commercial and Character Slogan Recall by Children aged 9 to 11 Years,” Center on Alcohol Advertising, Berkeley, CA, 1998.
16. Ibid.
17. The Bottom Line, Vol. 19, No. 4, Winter 1998, pp. 67-69.
18. See reference 15.
19. Ibid.
20. See reference 8.
21. Katherine C. Lyall, “Binge Drinking on American College Campuses: A New Look at an Old Problem,”1995, www.hsph.harvard.edu/ cas/RWJ_S.htm#snap
22. See reference 15.
23. See reference 8.
24. See reference 1, pp. 12-14.
25. Ibid., pp. 16.
26. Ibid., p.24.
27. Ibid., p. 8