beverages
Anheuser-Busch Encourages Responsible Drinking
- by Tanya Gazdik , July 5, 2012
Anheuser-Busch is
unveiling its newest responsible drinking campaign which relies on online and social media.
A website, www.NationofResponsibleDrinkers.com, asks adults to pledge their commitment to drink responsibly and then share it through Facebook to encourage friends to do the same. The pledge is three-fold in that it asks users to respect the legal drinking age, enjoy responsibly and know when to say when and be or use a designated driver.
Each pledge is then populated on an interactive map, showing those who have taken the pledge in their communities.
The St. Louis-based company first launched a responsible drinking program 30 years ago with its now iconic “Know When To Say When” campaign.
"With close to half a billion adults on Facebook, we see an enormous opportunity to expand our reach to newer generations of adult drinkers -- most of whom came of age after 'Know When to Say When' and our earlier responsible drinking campaigns," said Kathy Casso, vice president of corporate social responsibility for Anheuser-Busch, in a release. "We're looking to the future of alcohol responsibility, and we see the potential in social media -- with its ability to bring adults together and peer-to-peer persuasion -- to help friends and family make smarter choices."
The “Know When to Say When” campaign was expanded in 1985, making Anheuser-Busch the first brewer to bring a responsible drinking message to network television. Anheuser-Busch and its wholesalers have invested more than $930 million in advertising and community-based programs that promote responsible drinking and prevent underage drinking and drunk driving.
The campaign ran for more than a decade and included TV, newspapers, magazine, radio and billboards. Other Anheuser-Busch responsibility campaigns including “We All Make A Difference,” “Wanna Go Home With Me Tonight?,” “Who's Your Bud” and “Responsibility Matters” have featured sports figures, including Dan Marino, Wayne Gretzky, Patrick Ewing, Oscar De la Hoya, Payne Stewart and music stars George Strait, Tim McGraw and Nelly.
"Drink Responsibly" is a cruel joke dreamed up by Big Alcohol PR flacks to appear as though they are doing something serious about the over-consumption of a dangerous drug. It's crafty window-dressing that only serves to further burn beer brand names into the brains of young people. There is not one shred of evidence, not one peer-reviewed study that shows the $930 million A-B has spent over the past 30 years has done anything except increase sales of beer. This new campaign does nothing more that extend that sales promotion strategy more deeply and efficiently into social media venues, where youth congregate in vast numbers. Over the past 30 years they have spent perhaps 70 or 80 times that amount in other forms of advertising which have fueled over-consumption causing disastrous public health and safety results, in addition to creating a toxic social norm that binds alcohol to sports. The only clear message in Drink Responsibly is "drink more beer." Learn about effective, evidence-based strategies to reduce over-consumption at www.AlcoholJustice.org
Mr. Scippa is correct. Older readers will remember that drinking was a very shameful behavior in the 1950s, that our mothers told us to stay away from households where one of the parents was an alcoholic, and that movies like The Days of Wine and Roses were cautionary tales. But, hey, now drinking is a rite of passage and a whole lot of fun, especially if you ignore all the ruined lives and premature deaths.
I don't advocate tee-totaling, but there is no such thing as drinking responsibly.