South Africa has an issue with alcohol, and I contributed to it. From 2002 to 2013, I labored in promoting, a lot of that point on alcohol manufacturers for main producers and brokers for worldwide manufacturers.
In technique periods and pitches, I don’t recall anybody asking: “Are we including to the alcohol drawback in South Africa?” Our job was to promote, not resolve. Alcohol is an addictive substance, that’s indeniable. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says there’s no protected stage of consumption.
But the place campaigns had been made, the main focus was on making alcohol really feel aspirational.
We’d do immersions in taverns and shebeens. We’d ask males ingesting at midday what they favored about their drink. They’d say: “It’s bought probably the most alcohol,” or “It makes me really feel robust”. We weren’t there to know why they had been ingesting at noon, or if they’d a job. We had been there for insights.
No one I labored with intentionally obscured hurt. But nobody grappled with it both. The promoting trade’s lack of vital reflection wasn’t distinctive. Nor is my very own retrospective discomfort. Abroad, former tobacco entrepreneurs Emerson Foote, Warren Braren and Alan Landers later turned critics of their very own work from the ’60s and ’70s.
The energy of advertisements
Advertising is a highly effective software. When teenagers see alcohol linked to themes of confidence or belonging, they’re not simply seeing advertisements, they’re seeing identities. Studies present early publicity results in earlier, heavier ingesting.
A examine in China discovered youth with excessive advert publicity had been twice as more likely to begin ingesting. The purpose is early model loyalty and normalisation of ingesting.
That’s why the WHO recommends restrictions on alcohol promoting. Other international locations have acted. France’s Évin Law states that alcohol advertisements can solely include factual product data. Norway banned alcohol promoting. SA’s Liquor Amendment Bill of 2016 contains an advert ban, besides on the level of sale. And lately, the Economic Freedom Fighters launched a non-public members’ invoice that bans alcohol promoting, sponsorships and product placement throughout all media.
Restricting promoting
Restricting alcohol promoting wouldn’t be curbing freedom of expression on the a part of liquor producers or interfering with shoppers’ proper to data, as researchers on the universities of Cape Town and Bath have argued.
Yet, the Liquor Amendment Bill, which opened for public remark 9 years in the past, has stalled. Not for lack of proof, however due to the liquor trade’s affect on the desk. Between 2017 and 2021, alcohol firms embedded themselves inside NEDLAC’s coverage course of, generally outnumbering group representatives 15 to 1.
And whereas producers preach private accountability, they preserve normalising alcohol by each tactic, together with pricing. Large codecs like 750ml and 1-litre beers are marketed at costs that incentivise heavy ingesting.
In 2010, Carling Black Label ran a billboard marketing campaign that learn: ‘Groot man of laaitie? Vra vir die volle 750ml’. Loosely translated it means: “Big man or small boy? Ask for the 750ml”. It implied moderation was for the weak.
Sonke Gender Justice complained that it promoted extreme ingesting. The model’s proprietor South African Breweries (SAB) pulled the marketing campaign earlier than the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) might rule on it.
The Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB), the successor to the ASA, upheld complaints in opposition to two alcohol manufacturers in 2025. One of them steered that alcohol helped with office stress; the opposite depicted ingesting on the seashore, which isn’t allowed in South Africa. Both had been pulled from TV however stay on-line.
The drawback with the drink responsibly tagline
The trade loves to speak about private accountability. “Drink responsibly”, they are saying, however you’ll be able to’t place all accountability on the person whereas creating messages that normalise heavy ingesting. This dangerous behaviour has devastating outcomes for society: homicides, crashes, gender-based violence and even residential fires.
Producers cling to a fastidiously crafted fable: ingesting is a private alternative; all issues lie with the drinker and the producer is to not blame. Apparently, promoting is highly effective sufficient to develop gross sales, market share and “share of throat”, however not robust sufficient to be (at the least partly) accountable for dangerous ingesting.
The alcohol trade does have codes of conduct in relation to alcohol advertising and marketing, like these by Aware.org and the Drinks Federation of South Africa. By and huge these aren’t ignored. Nor are the rules set out by the ARB. These codes prohibit direct promoting to kids or creating false hyperlinks between alcohol and success.
Make the drink aspirational
But in my expertise, the company was at all times briefed by the model to make the drink aspirational. Beer equals masculinity; wine equals class; cider means enjoyable. It reveals up in live shows, music movies, sports activities, and worth promos, reinforcing alcohol as a part of grownup success and celebration.
This messaging doesn’t bypass kids or the weak, it surrounds them. The affect isn’t about who it’s “aimed toward”; it’s about who’s uncovered and what’s normalised.
Brands could argue they don’t promote to minors or the weak, however they promote round them, close to faculties in under-resourced areas, on their favorite social media feeds, throughout their commute, and inside the cultural areas younger individuals look as much as. In doing so, they construct familiarity, desirability, and early model loyalty.
That’s why the problem isn’t nearly promoting content material. It’s about saturation and context. The advert could not say “this may make you profitable”, however within the advert, profitable individuals drink, creating the life others aspire to have. Even with self-regulation, promoting exterior factors of sale continues to form attitudes towards alcohol, for everybody.
This is why we have to prohibit alcohol promoting besides on the level of sale. This isn’t prohibition, or an assault on freedom of speech. It’s prevention of hurt and defending individuals from the highly effective affect of promoting.
Corné Kritzinger is the communications specialist on the DG Murray Trust (DGMT). With over a decade of expertise in promoting businesses and client-side advertising and marketing earlier than transferring to civil society, he brings a non-traditional lens to his civil society work. His work now focuses on urgent social points together with dietary stunting, early childhood growth, college dropout, youth unemployment and alcohol harms.
