Investigate Alcohol Marketing, Social Networks, Groups Say

An alcohol trade group said the industry already follows a rigorous self-regulatory code praised by the FTC. And the Progress & Freedom Foundation, which has undertaken its own campaign to defend advertising as crucial to the Internet experience, said the researchers should “have a beer and relax."

Ads for alcohol on their own branded sites and within social networks are “immersive and 24-7 environments” used “specifically” to target kids, Montgomery told reporters on a call Tuesday. Using a “360-degree strategy” and “neuromarketing,” alcohol brands lure in young users online and prompt them to provide information or share content, she said. Through “surveillance” of people’s relationships with each other online, alcohol brands identify the “influencers” in a social group, Montgomery said. “There’s a whole world of stealth marketing that occurs” as brands analyze and track users’ engagement, Chester said. Some of the most troubling marketing is directed to “youth of color” already at high risk of alcohol abuse, he said. “We are not calling for any kind of censorship” but rather the imposition of fair marketing practices for teens that already exist for users under 13 in COPPA, Montgomery said.

Much of the report deals with examples of marketing. Heineken’s “virtual universe,” created in 2007, let users build up real estate from playing branded games on Facebook, gave them access to in-world music clubs, and game winners even received Heineken-branded e-mail addresses. Proximo’s 1800 Tequila asked visitors to its branded site to “design” their own bottles and got their contact information, doubling its database. Smirnoff ran a “treasure hunt” in Australia that left clues on blogs, mobile sites and social networks that would help users find tickets to the “biggest free party” in the country, the report said. It also sponsored one of the best-known YouTube videos, an upper-class rap parody for Smirnoff Raw Tea that has drawn five million views, an example of the “Wild West” of alcohol ads online, Chester said. Social networks have been helping questionable brands, too, the report said: MySpace’s 2008 media kit let marketers target “smokers” and “drinkers” as identified by their profiles. A Facebook application for Captain Morgan’s Rum asked visitors to send a personalized voice message with a “cutie,” “cougar” or “player” character to a friend’s phone.

The FTC and other regulators should examine the role of Web 2.0 sites such as Facebook, Google and YouTube that are used by alcohol brands, to determine how they target young people, the report said. It asks the FTC to publish yearly expenditure figures and “exposure metrics” by alcohol companies, just as the commission does for tobacco marketing, and study ads used to create immersive experiences. Alcohol industry codes should also explicitly ban the collection of “psychographic” information, such as personality, values and interests, from underage users on their own or other sites. Companies should make public “transparency reports” on their online marketing activities and ban advertising from digital media where more than 15 percent of users are ages 12 to 20, the report said.

In a break with law enforcement officials who have asked for improved age verification, the report said the checks are “increasingly irrelevant.” That’s because advertising has become “fully integrated into daily communications” and users are prompted to promote brands themselves. Any child can “do the math” and list a false birthdate to get into an alcohol brand’s site, Montgomery said.

But child health experts who generally agreed with the report said on the call that age verification could be better. David Jernigan, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said companies rely on “very weak” verification systems to keep out younger users. Webmasters are making “only token efforts” to keep out youth, who are at their “lifetime peak of risk-taking curiosity,” said pediatrician George Askew, deputy CEO for Voices for America’s Children. Jernigan said a request by 23 attorneys general to alcohol companies to ask for some form of governmental ID for site entry, or otherwise catch kids with “challenge questions,” was legitimate. But Chester clarified that his group isn’t calling for more stringent verification, because that raises privacy concerns. But regulators must flush out the “deliberate strategies” from alcohol companies that attract youth, and devise “specific safeguards” to keep them out, he said. The report, however, said alcohol marketers should work with health experts and policy makers to “reexamine how age is currently verified online."

The Distilled Spirits Council said its “responsible advertising” efforts had been “commended” by the FTC. Its members follow “content and placement guidelines” for all media, but online channels are used primarily by adults, making them “responsible and appropriate channels” for marketing, the council said. Four in five YouTube users are 21 or older, and the 35-54 demographic on Facebook has been doubling every two months, it said. Adam Thierer, president of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, told us the researchers should “have a beer and relax,” because alcohol ads are one of the oldest forms of advertising. “What do they think funds all that free media content and online services we get on the Internet?” Increasing education is a better option, he said.