Your Shout / Jean Coussins: Advertise caution

"Social responsibility would swiftly become second nature if your bonus depended on it" Jean Coussins – CEO, The Portman Group

Innovation was a dirty word when I joined The Portman Group 10 years ago. A media-driven frenzy was in full swing over the introduction of alcopops. All new product development seemed to consist of was brightly coloured liquids in whacky containers like test tubes, with childish names and cartoons all over the labels. The Secretary of State for Health in the incoming Labour Government in 1997 said that “no decent human being would associate” with the people behind Hooper’s Hooch.

Today, the drinks industry and the government are celebrating their working partnerships. The smartest people in the industry have realised that they can use innovation to promote, drive and help define their commitment to social responsibility. And the threat of statutory controls on marketing freedoms has given way to respect for the way producers have developed and complied with self-regulation. Stefan Stern writing in The Daily Telegraph in April 2006 observed that, “TPG’s work making drinks companies accountable shows that self-regulation can be to everybody’s benefit”.

Some companies learned the hard way that it would cost them dear to bring out new brands that could be seen as targeting the under-18s or encouraging excessive consumption. They paid for their bad judgment with the cost of having to dump stock, renegotiate supply contracts and pulp and redesign labels. They also paid the price of a damaged reputation and image. Retailers became the third-party enforcers of the Code, removing offending products from their shelves and checking with The Portman Group before carrying new brands. More than 80 products have been withdrawn from the market in line with the Code’s high standards.

The Code is backed up by a pre-launch advisory service, which is busier than ever because producers know that it pays to get things right first time. Requests for advice outnumber complaints by at least 10 to one. Companies and their creative agencies now routinely come to us to check out early-stage ideas of new designs, promotions and other below-the-line marketing activity.

So three cheers for the industry, but is it enough? Of course not!  This is an industry constantly in the public eye and under political scrutiny. This autumn will see a new European alcohol strategy, which will undoubtedly lead to calls for more stringent measures.

If the industry wants to avoid draconian restrictions, it must stay on the front foot, continually earning the right to remain in partnership with the government, continually demonstrating that self-regulation works. Going the extra mile in the short term with targeted, proactive measures on your terms is likely to spare you more sweeping crackdowns in the future. Sports sponsorship could arguably be safeguarded in the long term by agreeing voluntarily to end the branding of children’s replica kits now. Also, the voluntary practice of unit labelling has offered a more effective route to consumer education than health-warning labels.

Remember that by no means all EU member states are even close to accepting that working with the drinks industry is the best way to promote responsible drinking. The UK is in a good position to show leadership, and our ministers, MEPs and officials should also be more proactive,  persuading their opposite numbers that the most sustainable improvements in public health, consumer behaviour and commercial practices can be achieved by working together.

Social responsibility is increasingly accepted by the industry as a mainstream business driver, part of what determines the bottom line. It shouldn’t be something that just gets done and budgeted for in the external relations, policy or PR department of the company. Marketing, sales, promotions and product development teams, as well as the chief officers and the board, all need to be focused on their role in delivering a company-wide responsibility programme. Social responsibility would swiftly become second nature if your bonus depended on it.

The creative and scientific challenges to social responsibility offer plenty of scope for innovative thinking. Why can’t there be more decent wines at less than 12% abv? Or low- alcohol beers that aren’t sneered at? Where are the marketing campaigns that take advantage of demographic trends showing dramatic increases in the older population with more disposable income? Do you realise how much brand value you could add by using brand advertising as a vehicle to promote responsibility messages? The unacceptability of drinking to excess, or the desirability of eating when you’re drinking are messages that can be conveyed in a deadly dull “health promotion” way, which will turn consumers off. Or they can be done imaginatively, in character with your brand, wittily, beautifully, memorably, stylishly – in a way that people notice and then think about. 

Research commissioned by The Portman Group showed that consumers expect hard-hitting responsibility messages to come from the government or some other respected third-party source, such as Drinkaware. But they also said that brands have a role to play in complementing these messages in a style appropriate to the brand. Brands that do are noticed and earn an enhanced image. Brands that don’t are noticed too, but marked down in the consumer’s eyes.

In a market under pressure, the competitive edge will be earned by those who apply the same business criteria to social responsibility as they do to the business as a whole – take risks, give consumers what they want, and innovate, innovate, innovate.

© db September 2006

Jean is leaving The Portman Group in September to pursue a career of non-executive roles in both the public and private sectors. She wants to remain involved in the drinks industry and may be contacted via the editor of the drinks business