This is a lesson on the dangers of taking things at face value in the drinks industry. Read on.
Delegates at the Conference of the Faculty of Public Health in Scotland have voted in favour of the Scottish Government’s plans for the minimum pricing of alcohol.
The public health professionals
Their Convener, Dr Emilia Crighton, told the BBC that they see an ‘overwhelming case’ that cheap drink is undermining Scotland’s health.She cited research results showing that 866 annual deaths would be prevented by a 60p price on a unit of alcohol. The Scottish Government’s proposed minimum price per unit is thought to be 40p.
Dr Crighton said that statistics showed that as prices have dropped, consumption has risen.
The Faculty of Public Health in Scotland is responsible for the protection of public health in Scotland so its views on this matter are much more persuasive that those of Diageo – aka The Scotch Whisky Association, owning 40% of Scotch whisky production and with Paul Walsh, Diageo’s CEO, in the position of being its Chair.
The campaign against minimum pricing of alcohol
The public health professionals judgment comes shortly after the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) announced that it is to fund a campaign against the proposed measure.
As we have said before, it is intentionally misleading to have the SWA as a front organisation. Not only is Diageo the engine of the SWA but a bottle of Scotch wold have to be priced at around £7 to be affected by the proposed minimum unit pricing. In the case of bottles of whisky priced at around £7, few could argue that this low price is an incitement to binge drinkers.
The products of SWA members could hardly be said to fall into this low end market sector and so the question is raised as to the Association’s motive in the campaign.
Look no further than Diageo – the worlds biggest drinks company earning vast sums from the cheap vodka and alcopops that are simultaneously the wipe-outs of choice of the fall-down-vomiting brigade and among the targets of the minimum pricing policy.
Scotch Whisky itself – and particularly the quality end of the market – has never been at any real risk from the proposed legislation.
What is at risk are Diageo’s profit margins in volume sales of these cheap drinks – and we know that increasing its profit margins matters enough to Diageo to see 700 of its workers at Kilmarnock abruptly made jobless.
The strategy is plain. The real interests of a campaign against minimum pricing fronted by Diageo would be immediately obvious and would not attract public sympathy, particularly at the moment. So disillusioned has the market become with Diageo’s conduct that the company is currently considering changing its name. It is a damaged brand.
On the other hand, a campaign fronted by the Scotch Whisky Association, carrying the culturally significant reverberations of the legendary single malt distilleries, would act as a lightning conductor for public concern.
This is a mischievous and self-interested strategy on the part of a huge multinational drinks producer that has already exported ownership of its iconic Scotch whisky brand names to offshore companies.
The ‘we promote responsible drinking’ manoeuvre
As further evidence of Diageo’s straightfaced strategic multipurpose dealing, it runs a ‘Responsible drinking’ programme within its much vaunted Corporate Citizenship policy.
This involves the company having a presence at freshers’ weeks on University campuses – venues which are, of course, appropriate for advice on responsible drinking.
However, the company’s impressive corporate presence has – and who would be sufficiently cynical to see this as conscious – the effect of strongly establishing the identities of its various brands in this fruitful market and founding lifelong affinities. As we say today, there’s no such thing as a free lunch – or as the ancient Greeks put it, ‘fear those bringing gifts’.
In freshers’ week initiatives Diageo has introduced elements like curved mirrors in lavatory washrooms to give people distorted views of themselves and, allegedly, make them ‘question whether they have had one too many’. In fact, this is no more than the provision of a bit of communal fun which obliquely enhances the drinking habit in that culture.
In a less transparently brand-enhancement ploy enacted in May this year at 10 UK university campuses, Diageo created a series of bespoke pool halls featuring the names of a selection of popular beer, wines and spirits brands. Did these belong to their competitors? This was said to ‘give students clear and simple unit guidance in an innovative and eye-catching way’.
The fact that it subliminally reinforced certain market-appropriate brands in the students’ consciousness will have been an unintentional and unwelcome by-product. After all, Diageo is in the business of not wanting students to drink.
And by the way, this campaign was supported by a flood of pub and bar games based around popular drinks and units of alcohol, posters, beer mats, runners and postcards. You could call this relentless exposure to specific brands a form of brain washing.
In a joint scheme with Asda ‘to educate consumers about alcohol units’, the following features were part of Diageo’s contribution in 150 Asda stores across the UK.
- Teams of staff circulated the stores, carrying boards with ‘visuals’ of popular alcoholic drinks (whose?), approaching customers to ask if they knew how many units of alcohol each involved.
- Then they gave away free jiggers – 3.5cl spirit measures – recommended for home use. Who won’t go home and try the new free toy and who may actually buy some spirits to use in the trial runs? This ruse is likely to increase spending on drink by introducing new habits to the domestic routine. Drinking at home can be one of the most serious habits to develop as it lacks the inbuilt constraint of being in a public place. This still applies for many people.
- In another disguised habit forming strategy, customers were also given recipe cards for mixing drinks from some of Diageo’s top brands – Gordon’s Gin, Bell’s Whisky, Smirnoff vodka, Captain Morgan’s rum and Pimms. Well, that will certainly encourage people to drink less and enable them to dissociate a spirit from a particular Diageo brand.
The bottom line in this story is twofold.
- Do not naively allow your patriotic atttachment to the notion of the dram to be used to discredit the Scottish Government’s strategy to start combating Scotland’s worrying binge drinking culture.
- ‘Fear those bringing gifts’ – these ‘gifts’ and this interpretation of ‘corporate citizenship’ are investments in your coming contribution to Diageo’s profit margins.
There is also a cultural bottom line in which Diageo has a very real point to make. Part of its defence against the introduction of minimum pricing is that there is little difference in the price of alcohol between England and Scotland yet binge drinking and alcohol abuse are much more prevalent in Scotland.
While minimum pricing will impact upon consumption, it is a last ditch defence against an attitudinal social ill. In the parlance of the trade, this will need botttoms up initiatives alongside the pricing strategy to mobilise lasting change.
