'Anti-marketing' academic provokes drinks industry

LONDON - A report by an "anti-marketing" academic which claims the drinks industry is promoting alcohol irresponsibly has prompted a furious response from industry groups.

The drinks industry: under fire
The drinks industry: under fire

Writing for the British Medical Journal, Professor Gerard Hastings claimed that advertisers were trying to persuade young people to take up drinking.

Hastings' makes the assertion after examining documents submitted to the Health Select Committee investigation into alcohol policy from ad agencies and their clients.

He claims to have found breaches of the regulatory code on advertising drinks across the board. He cites a document which shows that Carling was the "first choice for the festival virgin" while WKD aimed to attract "new 18-year-olds".

The report also claims that brands such as Lambrini and Smirnoff were analysing drunkenness and potency respectively to see if it offered marketing opportunities.

The sponsorship and digital marketing activities of drinks brands also came in for criticism.

Tim Lefroy, chief executive of the Advertising Association, said he was "bored with rebutting Gerard Hastings and his ill-founded distortions" and expressed disappointment that the British Medical Journal had given space to "anti-marketing campaigning".

Lefroy said: "This article is a gross misrepresentation of how marketing campaigns are developed. Hastings has focused on internal creative processes and research, and not on the final execution which is subject to stringent codes of practice and compliance procedures."

Mike Hughes, ISBA director general, said: "Gerard Hastings has deliberately chosen to distort the facts to support his own public agenda.

"In so doing he fails to identify a single case of malpractice, which is due to the efficient system of self regulation within the companies to which he refers - it is clearly an inconvenient truth from his viewpoint."

David Poley, Portman Group chief executive, accused Hastings of resorting to "slurs and innuendos".

Poley said: "We are proud of the regulatory system for alcohol in the UK which is admired across the world.  Gerard Hastings trawled through thousands of pages of internal company marketing documents on behalf of the Health Committee. He failed to find any evidence of actual malpractice."

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