The new Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code (ABAC) online training course has seen strong uptake, but Chair Harry Jenkins AO says alcohol marketers are still being caught out, particularly on social media.
In its Second Quarter Report ABAC said that it received 121 complaints, which resulted in 62 determinations by the ABAC Panel. Of those 29 were dismissed, one was upheld as a No Fault Breach and 32 complaints were upheld, with no of these going through ABAC’s pre-vetting service. In total ABAC received 729 adverts for pre-vetting.
Jenkins said: “It has been very pleasing to see that a few months after launch of the free training course, more than 200 industry participants have undertaken the training, demonstrating their commitment to responsible marketing practices.
“The positive feedback we have received on how helpful the course has been shows it to be a very worthwhile use of one-and-a-quarter hours for anyone (marketers, agencies, designers) involved in the marketing and packaging of alcohol and we encourage all industry participants to make use of this service.
“There was also strong Panel activity throughout the quarter with digital marketing, in particular Instagram, continuing to be the largest source of complaints considered by the Panel. The Code standard most commonly breached this quarter was images of alcohol use with swimming pools and other activities that require a high degree of alertness or physical co-ordination.
“It is important for alcohol marketers that engage with influencers to be aware that Instagram have now caught up with Facebook in allowing age restriction of individual posts, enabling influencers to age restrict posts promoting an alcohol brand.
“The ABAC placement rules require available age restriction controls to be applied. Instructions on how to apply this age restriction can be accessed via the ABAC website.”