For the fourth time in 12 years, the Federal Trade Commission plans to study the effectiveness of the voluntary guidelines followed by most marketers of alcoholic beverages. The guidelines are intended primarily to reduce the exposure of advertising to those under the legal drinking age.
One area the commission is likely to explore is advertising in social media, which was negligible or nonexistent the last time a study was conducted.
The first step will be to collect information from the companies that sell beer, wine and distilled spirits. The commission will seek data on topics like how the industry complies with the self-regulatory process in areas like ad placement and how companies try to avoid collecting data from those under the age of 21.
The alcoholic beverage industry has a self-regulatory process for its advertising and marketing practices that is separate from the process followed by makers of other products; the latter use a system that is under the aegis of the Council of Better Business Bureaus to resolve complaints against ads.
A significant part of the process followed by the marketers of alcoholic beverages is a rule that ads should run only in media outlets certifying that 70 percent or more of their viewers or readers are 21 or older.
Continues at: F.T.C. to Take Another Look at Alcoholic Beverage Ads – NYTimes.com.
Related articles
- Millennials Redefine the Alcohol Beverage Landscape | Nielsen Wire (zumgi.com)
- Japanese scientists use alcoholic drinks to induce superconductivity (scienceblog.com)
