Alcohol Concern Wales' latest trick

Fake charity Alcohol Concern Wales have recently been spending your money on a study of 10 and 11 year olds and, therefore, have apparently created somthing newsworthy.

Child alcohol awareness 'higher than for some foods'

Children as young as 10 are more familiar with some alcohol brands and adverts than those for popular foods and snacks, research shows.

*Massive yawn*

Eight in 10 also recognised the Smirnoff vodka label as an alcohol product.

Good for them. It is an alcohol product. Is total ignorance now an official temperance goal? Would they be happier if kids thought it was lemonade?

Meanwhile, three-quarters of children associated the image of fictional characters Brad and Dan from a Fosters advert with alcohol, compared to 42% who recognised Cadbury's drumming gorilla was for a food product.

How interesting that they chose this Cadbury's advert as a comparison.






I remember this advert for two reasons. The first is that it got press coverage at the time—it was shown in 2007, but we'll come back to that—because it was considered brave to barely mention the product being advertised in a 90 second commercial. It swept the boards at various advertising awards ceremonies because its studied post-modernism appeals to the kind of cocaine-snorting posers who work in that industry. However...

The second reason I remember it is that, for the reasons given above, it was not very successful at actually shifting product. There was a massive chasm between the art-school pretensions of the back-slapping pseuds of the advertising industry and the commercial objectives of their clients.

In the last year, one of TV’s most talked-about advertisements has been the drumming gorilla. It won awards, it was a typical ‘water-cooler’ discussion point, and many people found it fun and off-beat (excuse the drumming pun!), even though the accompanying music was by Phil Collins.

The advertisers must have been happy with their awards and Cadbury’s must have been thrilled with the buzz. Or were they? Marketing Research company TNS have just issued a report – gratefully referenced by Private Eye in their ‘Ad Nauseam’ section – that shows that, during the period of the advertisement’s run up to July this year, Cadbury’s Dairy Milk actually lost ground to Galaxy (produced by rival Mars).

People remembered the advert because it was—albeit self-consciously—quirky, but they didn't remember what it was advertising because there is no connection between an ape playing along to Phil Collins and Dairy Milk chocolate. In the Foster's adverts, however, the two protagonists have constantly got a beer to hand, thereby reminding the public of what it is they're supposed to buy.

This is all rather significant if you're going to show kids stills from these two adverts and ask them what type of product is being sold. From the survey results...

An image of the characters Brad and Dan from a Fosters television advertisement was correctly associated with alcohol by three quarters (75%) of the children consulted. This was lower than the number correctly identifying Évian’s roller-skating babies advertisement as a being for a soft drink (83%), but much higher than the number who recognised screenshots from the Walkers Extra Crunchy advertisement (58%)...

Never heard of it.

...and the Cadbury drumming gorilla advertisement (42%) as being for foods.

What conclusion can any reasonable person draw from this other than that Evian and Foster's have made effective advertisements and Walkers and Cadbury's have not? Not only do Foster's make it clear that they are advertising a beer, they have made a series of different adverts using the same characters for a campaign that is still ongoing. Cadbury's, on the other hand, made one notoriously uninformative advert back in 2007 when the kids involved in this survey were 5 or 6 years old.

Does this comparison not have a touch of the apples and oranges about it? As I've said, I remember the Cadbury's advert and I knew it was for chocolate, but maybe—just maybe—I wouldn't have remembered the fucking thing if I had been five years old when it was last broadcast.

Mark Leyshon, from Alcohol Concern, said: "Research shows that children who are exposed to alcohol advertising and promotion are more likely to start to use alcohol, have positive expectations about alcohol, and to drink more if they are already using alcohol.

"It's clear that more effective controls are needed."

Shut up and give us our money back.

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Big Alcohol = Big Tobacco

A bit more schadenfreude for the nonsmoking drinkers who applaud the anti-smoking campaign while expecting their own vice to be left alone. As I said yesterday in relation to quisling pub supremo Ted Tuppen...

Do you really think it is wise, as the head of a pub company, to equate alcohol with cigarettes? There are enough temperance nuts doing that already without you helping them out.

Five years ago this would have been outrageous hyperbole, but things move pretty quickly in 'public' health. Five years ago I don't recall anyone ever seriously using the term 'Big Alcohol'. Big Tobacco, sure. Big Oil, sometimes. But 'Big Alcohol'—not so much.

That's all changing.

How's that for guilt by association? Alcohol Concern Wales—for it is they—have created a document which contrasts statements from the tobacco industry with statements from the alcohol industry. They're both the same, doncha see?

The logic here is lame even by temperance standards. They take no account of whether the statements might be true, for a start. They have dredged the internet and found comments that are roughly similar and that is enough for them.

And when I say roughly similar, I mean similar as in they're both spoken in English and involve words. Take this, for example....

“The Lorillard Tobacco Company today announced the launch of a nationwide youth smoking prevention programme. This...is in addition to the funds Lorillard and other companies have committed to the...youth smoking prevention and education programme.”
Lorillard Tobacco Company Press Release (1999)

“It is only through education, coupled with targeted interventions against misusers, that we can ultimately change the drinking culture...”
David Poley, Chief Executive of the Portman Group (2010)

Uncanny, eh? A tobacco company announces the launch of a youth smoking prevention programme (as it was required to do under the Master Settlement Agreement) and the Portman Group announces that, er, education and targeted interventions are essential to change the drinking culture. Both statements include the words "education" and "the". It's really quite spooky.

Or take this...

“[Increasing the price of cigarettes] discriminates against those who can least afford it. Increasing tobacco duty could cost the government billions of pounds...The Chancellor said the government’s policy on tobacco will reduce smoking. It’s not the government’s role to force people to quit.”
Simon Clark, Director of smokers’ lobby group Forest (2011)

“It is worrying that in the midst of a recession, when sales and consumption of alcohol are falling, that the Government should be talking about raising prices for all consumers, at a time when many are already struggling to make ends meet.”
Jeremy Beadles, Chief Exec. of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association (2009)

Let's take the first quote. Clark is saying that cigarette taxes are regressive (clearly true), that very high prices increase smuggling (also true) and that it is not the government's job to force people to stop smoking (a moral question, but a valid opinion).

Beadles, however, is simply saying that increasing the price of a product used by 90% of the population during a recession will make people worse off. He is not referring to the poor, to smuggling, nor to whether the government should be trying to stop people drinking.

These comments have very little in common except they refer to taxes. In the minds of Alcohol Concern, however, any industry that opposes tax hikes on its products is following the Big Tobacco template. As they say on their 'glancesheet' ('Glantz sheet'?):

This glancesheet shows how arguments previously put forward by tobacco companies and lobbyists, to delay or prevent tighter regulation of the industry, have now been adopted by the alcohol industry to protect its own interests.

There should be a version of Godwin's Law for anyone who resorts to comparing an industry with the tobacco industry for rhetorical purposes, with extra marks for using the word 'Big' (capitalised, natch). To the neo-prohibitionists, any industry that dares to challenge them is "recycling Big Tobacco arguments" and, therefore, can be ignored.

The irony is that there is a template being copied here and it is being copied very precisely. The temperance lobby is demonising industry, demanding higher taxes, calling for a total ban on advertising, playing the 'think of the children' card, using junk statistics and talking about 'passive drinking'.

Now who did they get from, I wonder?

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Alcohol Concern's sleight of hand

Alcohol Concern have a habit of using children in their opinion polls, presumably because young people tend to be stupid and impressionable, and therefore more likely to support neo-prohibitionist policies.

Their latest effort is so piss-poor that only The Guardian has bothered to cover it. It finds that...

Under-18s want more protection from alcohol marketing exposure

A survey of over 2300 children and young people reveals concern at alcohol marketing exposure and support for stronger regulation that robustly protects under-18s, finds Alcohol Concern

People under 18 can't buy alcohol and they can't vote, so as far as I'm concerned they can keep their opinions to themselves. But if some of the quotes reprinted in the report are genuine, we might as well pack our bags now. The final triumph of the nanny state cannot be far off.

“[Alcohol products] should contain shocking images like the image you see on packets of cigarettes, as you do not actually see how ill people can get from alcohol”

Female, 15 years-old

However, there are good reasons to doubt whether this survey is reliable.

The survey was disseminated via a targeted email (to youth groups, schools, local-authority youth services and interested individuals) and published on the Alcohol Concern website and on Twitter.

Indeed it was. Here is the tweet announcing it to the world...

The only to people to see this tweet would have been those who follow Alcohol Concern on Twitter, which is to say a self-selecting sample of temperance folk, 'public health professionals' and people like me who like to keep an eye on them. The people who visit the Alcohol Concern website are likely to have a similar bias.

These people will be predominantly adults but they might encourage their children to complete the survey, perhaps with a little helping hand.

Or they might just pretend to be children and fill it in themselves. After all, as the survey found, it is not hard to bypass online age checks...

Alcohol websites ask you to enter a date of birth to prove you are not under-18. Is this enough to stop under-18s from visiting these sites?

No, it's easy to enter another date: 78.2%

Yes, this is enough to stop me: 16.6%

Indeed. And this equally applies to Alcohol Concern's online survey which was strictly for the under-18s but whose only age verification process was this:

The survey itself was designed by 13 to 18 year olds (seriously) and it shows. A professional polling outfit would not resort to leading the witness as blatantly as this survey does. Take the introduction to the survey, for example (no longer online, but saved here):

Alcohol companies spend over £800 million each year in the UK on advertising (ads) to increase sales of their product. Under existing rules young people under 18-years-old should be protected from seeing most alcohol ads, but many studies show this isn't the case.

Today, advertising use technoloy to reach us in lots of different ways, like: TV; radio; cinema; billboard/posters; the internet; via mobile phones; through the sponsorship of music festivals and sports events; and even on football shirts... along with many other avenues.

You don't think all this talk of rampant alcohol advertising ("even on football shirts"!) and rules being breached could plant ideas in the respondent's mind, do you?

The report itself claims that...

The Youth Policy project specifically chose not to detail the existing alcohol-promotion regulations to The Voice or to survey participants, wanting to capture their expectations of alcohol-promotion regulation based on what young people see and hear around them.

These are weasel words. It is true that the survey doesn't "detail" the policies. Instead, it misrepresents them. Existing rules do not say that under-18s should be "protected" from seeing alcohol ads; it says that these ads must not target the under-18s. That is a big difference.

The report (and accompanying press release) emphasises in shocked tones that young people do not even recognise alcohol marketing when they see it.

The survey findings suggest that large numbers of young people regularly do not recognise alcohol marketing when it is channelled through sponsorship, product merchandise or via social networking sites – non-media channels known as ‘below the line’ promotion. Approximately half of young people do not consider alcohol promotion via such mediums as ‘marketing’, a finding which is consistent across both genders and all ages. This is of particular concern because investment in such strategies is increasing and is central to the alcohol industry’s efforts to associate with youth culture.

• 51.4% do not recognise official alcohol product Facebook groups as marketing

• 51.7% do not recognise alcohol branded events, such as festivals, as marketing

• 49.6% do not recognise alcohol sponsorship of football team shirts as marketing

• 49% do not recognise alcohol product merchandise as marketing.

The Guardian leads with this appalling insight into the ignorance of the young:

Most young people would like more protection from alcohol advertising, but under-18s do not recognise that drink logos on football shirts are a form of marketing, according to a survey.

This is extremely misleading. The question in the survey does not use the word 'marketing'. It uses the word 'ads'. Advertisements are clearly not the same thing as sponsorship, having a website or merchandising. All are forms of marketing, but they are not all forms of 'ads'. The actual question posed was:

Which of the following do you consider to be alcohol ads? (Tick as many boxes as you like)

• A viral video for an alcohol product

• Joining a Facebook group for an alcohol product (e.g. Smirnoff Facebook group)

• User generated content (e.g. an unofficial Facebook page for an alcohol product)

• A festival named after a product (e.g. Carling Weekend)

• A piece of alcohol product merchandise (e.g. Revolution bar’s ‘I love vodka’ t-shirts)

• Brand ambassadors (people who are paid to attend events and promote certain brands)

• Sponsorship of team shirts (e.g. football)

So, if you don't consider sponsorship to be an ad—which it isn't—or if you don't consider joining a Facebook group to be an 'ad'—which doesn't even make sense—then Alcohol Concern assume that you also don't think these things constitute marketing—which they are. This, they say, "is of particular concern."

Alcohol Con, on the other hand, are acutely aware of the difference between advertisements and marketing, which is presumably why they used the word 'ads' in the survey and the word 'marketing' in the report and press release. This sleight of hand is brushed over in the text of the report, which says...

"the term ‘ads’ was inserted by The Voice to encompass ‘marketing’, ‘advertising’ and ‘promotion’ as the group felt that these terms meant the same thing to most young people." 

Well, it doesn't, and not all kids are as thick as the ones who allegedly designed this survey. The change from 'ads' in the survey to 'marketing' in the final report must be regarded as highly suspect.

And finally, just in case the respondents hadn't quite worked out what the pollsters wanted to hear, the last question in the survey was:

Would you like to be kept informed of a youth led campaign that will challenge Government to reduce the amount of alcohol advertising we see?

No hint of a bias there then. Considering the standard of the survey, we can perhaps take heart that the majority of respondents still opposed Alcohol Concern's desired policy of a total ban on alcohol advertising on billboards, television and cinema.

Although the evidence suggests that a total ban on alcohol advertising would significantly reduce youth drinking, the majority of young people surveyed are not supportive of such strong regulatory intervention.

It also interesting that the under-11s were much keener or bans than the 16-17 year olds. Which just goes to show that neo-prohibitionism is a childish ideology that most people grow out of.

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Another Alcohol Con

If you haven't already bookmarked the excellent Straight Statistics, you really should. Their latest article is a routine debunking of some routine junk science from Alcohol Con(cern) who came up with the amazing finding that alcohol sales correlate with alcohol consumption. Or, to be precise, that alcohol-related hospital admissions are correlated with the number of off-licenses in an area.

But not in London. So they left that out.

This is such a blatant conflation of correlation and causation that even Ben Goldacre—who never criticises 'public health' bad science and sometimes defends it—emerged to poke fun at it.

A red-faced Don Shenker knew exactly what he was talking about and replied...

To which Goldacre rightly responded...

As Straight Statistics points out, Alcohol Concern quite explicitly did claim causality:

Under the heading Methodological Qualifications, the new report states: “This study did not set out to establish cause and effect.” Yet the previous page asserts that nearly 10 per cent of all alcohol specific hospital admissions in England, excluding London, are directly attributable to off-licence density, “meaning availability rather than any other external factor is the cause of one in ten of such harms”.

So either Don Shenker doesn't understand that if you say something is "the cause" you are claiming causality or he is a liar. I make no judgement on that but urge you go read the rest.

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