Watchdogs Stop Coors Co-Promotion
with "Scary Movie 4"

Coors Brewing Company abandoned its plans to use "Scary Movie 4" as a vehicle for marketing beer to millions of teens, thanks to efforts by a California coalition aligned against the alcohol industry's youth-targeted marketing. Although Coors previously announced plans to co-promote with the PG-13 film, the company backed off after being exposed in 2003 for its youth-targeted marketing in "Scary Movie 3."

The "Scary Beer Ads Campaign"—by the Youth Leadership Institute, California Friday Night Live Partnership, and Marin Institute—took Coors to task for placing its products in a movie with tremendous youth appeal. Thanks to these efforts, "Scary Movie 4" was released in April without Coors or any other alcohol brand featured in the film or in related promotions.

Though Coors and other alcohol producers say they do not want young people to drink, they profit heavily from underage drinkers, who consume nearly 20 percent of all alcohol in the U.S.¹ "Coors, Anheuser-Busch and other alcohol companies like to say they don't target kids with advertising," said Amon Rappaport, a spokesperson for the Marin Institute, "but then they promote their brands in PG-13 movies where millions of teens are watching."

In addition to the contradiction between what alcohol companies say and what they do, product placement in PG-13 movies is also troubling to those who seek to reduce underage drinking. A recent study published in the American Medical Association's Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine confirms that the more alcohol advertising young people see, the more they drink. "Too often young people are blamed for the underage drinking problem," said Maureen Sedonaen, president of Youth Leadership Institute, a national youth organization. "This time they were part of the solution by stopping the kind of reckless alcohol marketing that fuels youth drinking." Rappaport agrees that this is a blow to alcohol companies who are looking for new ways to reach young consumers. "Coors learned a scary lesson," he said. "There's no happy ending when you promote beer in teen movies."

¹The Commercial Value of Underage and Pathological Drinking to the Alcohol Industry. National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. May 2006.