My original post ‘XXXX Gold For Young and Old‘ created quite a reaction. This was nicely accelerated when it was gotten hold of by Tim Burrowes at Mumbrella.

To recap, I attended the XXXX Gold beach cricket where XXXX Gold promotional material was distributed to children as prizes and handouts. This contradicted the Alchol Beverages and Advertising Code which states:

“Alcohol beverage companies do not seek to promote their products at events which are designed to clearly target people under the legal drinking age.”

“Promotional materials distributed at events do not clearly target underage persons.”

“A condition of entry into giveaways promoted by alcohol companies at or in association with events is that participants must be over the legal drinking age; and prizes given away in promotions associated with alcohol beverage companies will only be awarded to winners who are over the legal drinking age.”

Advertising Standards Bureau CEO, Fiona Jolly, said that they can not act unless a complaint has been made. I haven’t made a complaint and don’t intend to – more on this later.

Lion Nathan’s Corporate Affairs Executive, Lauren O’Neil, told Mumbrella:

“We take responsible marketing and promotion extremely seriously, which is why we’re currently investigating this with the organisers – it may be that there’s a been a bit of confusion of whether this informal and ad hoc half time activity constitutes a ‘competition’ or ‘giveaway’ under the ABAC.

That said, I have reinforced these guidelines today with the event organisers.

The event is targeted at the XXXX Gold market – 25-45 year olds who love the outdoors and the good life, and the clear majority of the audience both at the event on watching the broadcast are over age of 18. However, we recognise the appeal of the players and the game may also mean that parents may choose to bring their families, which is why we put in place various measures to ensure the event is conducted in a responsible manner. It’s also worth noting, should adults choose to bring children to the events it is the responsibility of the accompanying adult to supervise the child in their care.”

However, despite this statement from Lion Nathan, I was watching the beach cricket on TV on Saturday (one week later) and was bombarded with XXXX Gold advertising… on children. The first I saw was a cross with Tim Bailey at 3pm who was surrounded by roughly 5 children, all of whom had XXXX Gold hats on. These were the same hats that organisers were indiscriminately handing out at last week’s event. Obviously these were still be given to children. We can see this from the screen shots (literally, shots of my television screen) on Saturday:

The problem I have with this is that, as an alcohol brand, XXXX Gold would not even consider walking down a main street giving branded merchandise to children. Yet, in an environment that is owned by them, where children are constantly exposed to the brand, they deem it an acceptable place to distribute promotional material to minors. If anything, they should be playing down the association of the beach cricket activity with their brand when it comes to children.

Beach cricket is a great event. It is a fantastic branded experience for their core consumers and a fun day for the kids. XXXX Gold just have to be careful not to confuse this enjoyment with permission. Just because it is a celebrated and encouraged past time for children it does not mean that the boundaries have shifted. XXXX Gold are still breaking the regulations by distributing promotional activity to children regardless of parental permission, sun protection or lack of control.

I’m not going to make an official complaint to the ASB. My reasoning for this is that it was never my intention (I want to create discussion), I don’t formlly rat within my own industry and now that XXXX Gold are aware of the issue I’d prefer to see how they react indepently. I won’t flog this to death but I will be carefully watching to see if there is any changes made to realign with the Alcohol and Beverages Code. Will let you know.

Update (19/01/09 3:18PM):Just received statement from Lion Nathan’s Corporate Affairs Executive, Lauren O’Neil who said:

“The promotional staff who work at the event are directed to hand out XXXX GOLD Beach Cricket hats to those over the age of 18 as they enter the ground. We have today reinforced this with the event organisers to ensure this is being followed each day of play.

However, it is worth noting that many adults give their hats to their children to protect them from the sun, or to have signed by the players. It is the parent or guardian’s choice to provide these to minors in their care.

We reiterate that this event is very clearly created for and targeted at XXXX GOLD drinkers. That said, we do make an effort to ensure the event is family friendly for those who choose to bring their children.”   

What do you think? Do you believe there XXXX are at fault or is this the responsibility of parents? Poll to the right of screen.

Update 8 Feb, 2009: The poll had 22 votes and was 54% in favour of saying that XXXX Gold had not marketed to children or broken the Alcoholic Beverages Advertising Code in their beach cricket series.

Related posts:

1. XXXX Gold For Young and Old
2. The Power of Cool
3. A Way To Increase Legal Music Purchases