Advertisers say MPs’ alcohol report “fails to follow the evidence”
8 Jan 2010
Responding to the recommendations made in the report on alcohol policy published today by the Commons Health Select Committee, Director General of advertiser body ISBA Mike Hughes said: “The proposed restrictions in this report are disproportionate and fly in the face of the evidence that draconian restrictions on alcohol advertising just do not work.
“Successive studies have shown that advertising does not drive alcohol consumption – its primary influence is on choice of brand. The greater influences on consumption, as new research by Ipsos/Mori for Clearcast has reiterated, are of a much wider societal nature, notably the family situation and peer group influence.
“This is a complex issue the solution to which requires a multi-faceted solution. Indeed, advertising can and is playing a positive part in this, as the £100million Campaign for Responsible Drinking – funded by the industry through the Drinkaware Trust – shows.
“Furthermore, the report’s call for “totally independent regulation” of alcohol promotion is misguided: in the advertising domain, this already exists in the form of the independent Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which is widely regarded as world-class within and beyond these shores.”
