Thursday 8 October 2009

Alcohol - the new tobacco

Superb blog post here from Chris Snowdon which really is essential reading for anyone concerned about the future of the drinks trade. He makes the point very clearly that whatever has been visited on the tobacco industry is on its way to hit drinkers ten years down the line. You may think the two are entirely different, but the banners certainly see one as a model for the other. Something which, of course, I have been saying for years.

The drinks industry hates to compare itself with the tobacco industry (understandably), but it really does not matter who they compare themselves with. It matters who the specialists are comparing them with.

The knives are out for alcohol, as they are for various types of food. As I argue in
Velvet Glove, Iron Fist, the blue-print was drawn up by the anti-smoking lobby. If the drinks lobby took its head out of the sand it would see that its future lies not with a mere ban on broadcast advertising, but in plain packaging, pictures of diseased livers on their labels and under-the-counter sales. And more. We shall see what the next move against smoking is, before we predict the fate of drinkers a decade or more hence.

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