Imagine a world without alcohol sponsorship of sport and without drinks ads on TV. You’re imagining France, the country with a binge drinking rate one sixth that of Ireland. It’s a country where there is a genuinely sensible and mature approach to alcohol – and it’s a country, like Ireland, with a mix of statutory and non-statutory regulations for the alcohol industry.
To be certain, people drink in France – there is alcoholism there, there are serious issues for public health in France, just like in other societies where alcohol is available – but in France, the trend is downward and binge drinking isn’t, in general, a group activity where getting drunk is the objective.
The drinks industry is ruthlessly efficient and deeply rational – like any multi-billion euro industry, it knows how to get people to drink more, how to grow a market and how to cultivate the next generation of drinkers, to put them on the value addition conveyor belt.
A staggering diversity of lifestyle messages and marketing approaches
The economics of drinking is strikingly obvious, once you’ve thought about it. A massive diversity of products at a massively wide range of prices, with a staggering diversity of lifestyle messages and marketing approaches to segment and divide the market. We start with the young drinkers, who don’t have a whole lot of money – for young men there’s the thin aluminium can beers which promise european sophistication and precious metals. For the ladies there are the lighter alcopops, the breezers and coolers, which promise to instantly put one into a frock and laugh uncontrollably into the night with your equally attractive mid-twenties friends. They offer Sex and the City, often with a three-for-two offer.
The next stage in the process is to get the drinker into the bottled beers and shift the ladies towards the Irish Creams or short-and-mixer. In the summer, everyone is encouraged to dedicate time to quenching the thirst with ciders – and to move on from there. At each life stage there is a higher-value drink product targeted at our aspirations and an encouragement to get some of the good life – and for every other moment there’s a pint glass filled with stout… possibly with a small shot of whichever whiskey needs a bit of a push at the moment, just to take the chill off.
Source: Laura Harmon, thejournal, 23/02/15
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