The trend has been so subtle that even media buyers may not be giving it much heed, and that has certainly been the intent behind the slow increase in TV advertising by makers of hard liquor. 
    Anxious to avoid the wrath that has descended upon tobacco, the liquor industry has moved with caution, imposing voluntary yet strict guidelines on where and when liquor ads can be aired.
    So far the ads have been limited to cable and spot TV, and the strategy appears to have worked. The nation's powerful temperance lobbies have raised nary a peep over the industry's decision to end its self-imposed 50-year-old ban on TV ads.
    But that could change, and overnight, if, as some expect, liquor advertising moves to network TV.
    Then expect the forces of temperance to turn up the heat on the government to step in.
    One group that is keeping an eye on TV liquor ads is the Center for Science in the Public Interest,  one of the groups leading the effort to restrict tobacco advertising.
    "We are concerned about any expansion of advertising for alcohol, which would be the result of more liquor ads on TV and radio," says George Hacker, director of the alcohol policies project for the group.
    So far, there has been very little adverse reaction from the public.
    "These ads have aired in all the top-10 media markets, and there’s been no outcry," says Lisa Hawkins, a spokesperson for the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.
    As much as anything, that's been because of a concerted effort by liquor companies to air ads to adult viewers, at times when children are least likely to be watching TV.
    "We look at dayparts, programming type, specific programs, even various episodes within programming. We’re very careful to look at the audience composition," says Jim Porcarelli, executive vice president of MediaCom. MediaCom handles ads for the liquor giant Seagram’s.
    "The local broadcast community realizes that liquor advertising, when placed with a sense of responsibility, has every right to be on the air, just like beer. If anything, the spirits business has been even more responsible, because they’ve been absolutely punctilious in determining where the 21-and-over audience is."
    But watchdog groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest are worried such self-restraint will evaporate under market pressures.
    "They may have demure and supposedly responsible advertisements today, but there’s nothing to keep them from eventually doing what the beer industry does so well, which is to use frogs, lizards, sports and other youth-oriented tactics in their ads," says Hacker.
    The key point is whether or not the major networks decide to welcome the distilled spirits advertisers.
    In the last five years, commercials for hard liquor have popped up on 191 stations in 123 markets nationwide, as well as 193 cable markets, accounting for two-thirds of the country. Three of the nation’s top four MSOs (cable providers) now carry some distilled spirits advertising.
    Still, without the big networks, liquor advertising on television remains minuscule compared to other media.
    Last year liquor companies spent $288.7 million advertising in magazines, accounting for over 75 percent of the $384 million category, according to data from CMR.
    Compare that to a mere $2.8 million spent last year advertising on cable and just $1.5 million on spot TV.
    "It’s sort of spotty right now. But if the networks were to give the okay that would open up just about every station in the country," says Jean Pool, director of operations at Mindshare.
    The major networks so far have made no moves to bring in the booze. But it may be only a matter of time.
    "They’re being hypersensitive these days. Once one network takes it, the rest will follow suit. I don’t know when, but I would not be the least bit surprised if we saw one and then the rest decide to take it," says Porcarelli.
    But even as the sagging economy exerts pressure on the networks to start accepting the ads, other concerns pull in the opposite direction: namely the risk of intervention by Congress or the federal regulatory commissions.
    "We would have to see much more widespread advertising for liquor before regulators get involved. That’s one reason why the networks have so far refused to air them; they don’t want to put their beer advertisers at risk," says Hacker.
    "It’s all alcohol, and it would be very difficult, legally, to distinguish liquor ads from beer ads."
    Still, with the current regulatory mood in Washington, some observers believe the prospect of government intervention is unlikely.
    "That’s probably the equation the networks are going to weigh in their minds: is the extra X million dollars of income worth the risk to our beer advertisers [if the government steps in]," says Ken Sacharin, executive vice president, media director at the Media Edge in San Francisco.
    "But I don’t think this particular FCC is that inclined to impose regulations where there were none before. If anything, I think its bias is in the opposite direction."
    Critics’ other major concern is that introducing distilled spirits ads to network television could touch off a ramp-up in both beer and liquor ads as the two categories duke it out.
    "Once you let the liquor on TV broadly, then that will induce a reaction from the brewers," says Hacker.
    "For example, right now you have beer ads all over shows like the Super Bowl, which has a massive youth audience—in fact, the largest audience of underage persons on television. If liquor wants a level playing field, what’s to stop them from doing the same thing and reaching tens of millions of underage people?"

June 5, 2001 © 2001 Media Life

-Gabriel Spitzer is a staff writer for Media Life.

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