Monday 7 May 2012

Responsible (adversiting of) drinking

Continuing the theme of describing actions undertaken in the EU to make EU consumers healthier, it is worth it to mention that eight of biggest European alcohol firms (e.g., Carlsberg, Heineken) have united in order to introduce tighter self-regulation measures as far as alcohol advertising is concerned. The "Responsible Marketing Pact" was launched by these companies last month in all EU countries in cooperation with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and the European Commission's European Alcohol and Health Forum (EHAF). The companies committed, among others, not to target children through the use of social media (by introducing effective age controls), by creating ads that are attractive to kids and to only purchase adverts in media that have an audience mostly consisting of adults (above 70% of expected audience). Consultants of Accentures as well as EHAF are supposed to carry out independent monitoring of performance of the commitments that have been made. (Drunk giants team up to head off ad regulation)