San Diego Signs On as Watchdog
The San Diego County Policy Panel on Youth Access to Alcohol has joined in a community partnership with the Marin Institute to help launch its new Alcohol Marketing Workgroup.
As part of the Marin Institute's narrowed focus on corporate accountability, we are thrilled to be working with community partners to help us hold the alcohol industry's feet to the fire for its unsafe and irresponsible marketing practices. We believe that by working together we can help each other reach shared goals.
San Diego County is a longstanding leader in addressing binge and underage drinking issues, and the new workgroup is the latest addition to others on responsible beverage service, alcohol outlet policy, and social access. Although there is still work to do in these areas, prevention activists in San Diego could not ignore the growing research record linking youth exposure to alcohol promotions with higher rates of underage drinking. Like many people committed to reducing alcohol problems, members of the San Diego prevention community are skeptical that the current self-regulatory system is adequate protection from alcohol advertising that targets youth, promotes heavy consumption or otherwise offends community standards of good taste and appropriateness. Alcohol producers use these voluntary advertising codes as evidence they are being responsible. But, despite these codes, they continue to promote and advertise their products in ways that reach large numbers of youth-often with content that has special appeal for young people.
Our partners in San Diego understand that creating more rigorous standards for alcohol advertising begins by exposing the limitations of the current system. One of the ways to do this is to increase the number of advertising complaints filed. As the workgroup brainstormed ways to address the local alcohol advertising and marketing, some workgroup members remembered TalkBack, the Marin Institute's online system for consumer complaints about alcohol promotions. The Policy Panel proposed working together to promote TalkBack and increase the number of alcohol advertising and promotions complaints in San Diego County.
Our answer was to establish an ongoing partnership with the Policy Panel to challenge irresponsible alcohol promotions in San Diego. As part of this partnership, the Marin Institute will provide consultation on TalkBack, assist in the development of local marketing materials to promote timely complaints, help with media advocacy, and monitor TalkBack complaints originating from San Diego County. The Policy Panel's Alcohol Marketing Workgroup will develop marketing materials and other activities to promote the use of TalkBack and monitor press coverage that results from local media advocacy.
The timing for this collaboration couldn't be better. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is currently developing a report on alcohol marketing for release in 2007. A key part of the FTC inquiry will look at the alcohol industry's compliance with its voluntary advertising standards as well as how it handles complaints. The Policy Panel's goal of generating 300 TalkBack complaints will help focus attention on why you shouldn't leave the fox to guard the henhouse.
If you are interested in taking on the alcohol industry in California, get involved in our Big Booze Watch effort by calling Laurie Leiber or Amon Rappaport at 415-456-5692.
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