By Annette Shailer and Amelia Ball
The new tagline ‘Kids Absorb Your Drinking’ went to air last night on national TV, as part of DrinkWise’s long-term strategy to combat excessive consumption of alcohol.
Directed at parents, the campaign hopes to make Australians aware of the way in which they drink, which directly impacts on how their children grow up to consume alcohol.
The advertisements were featured numerous times throughout Sunday programming and presented a young boy being asked to ‘grab a beer’ for his father. The child then becomes the adult asking his son to do the same thing and it repeats this same scene for three more generations.
Launched in Sydney on Friday, the campaign is a joint initiative of the independent community organisation DrinkWise Australia, and the Federal Department of Health and Ageing.
DrinkWise CEO, Dr Mike MacAvoy, said the campaign follows extensive research into the culture of drinking, and the importance of early intervention.
“Studies have found that parental role modeling has a strong influence on adolescent drinking patterns, and that adolescents whose parents are heavy drinkers are more likely to start drinking alcohol at an early age,” MacAvoy said.
As reiterated at the launch, this is not a ‘blame campaign’. Between the TV commercials that will screen for six months and the interactive website, the campaign hopes to provide helpful tips for parents and make people reassess their behaviour.
While many have questioned so-called ‘short-term, quick fix’ campaigns to prevent alcohol that have been released from the Government over the years, the social marketing program from DrinkWise aims to work long-term to shift the Australian way of thinking towards drinking.
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