Alcohol Advertising Regulations

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Dobbin. I had several reasons for requesting the debate. The first relates to the need for appropriate rules to regulate the marketing and promotion of alcoholic products. It is also an opportunity to underline the important contribution that advertising makes to the UK economy and a chance to champion the creative industries. It is useful to have the debate to balance calls from those in some quarters who wish to see tighter regulations or even a complete ban on alcohol advertising.

My interest in the subject comes from a desire to support and champion the growth of the creative industries, and the importance of advertising as part of that. In difficult economic times, we need to recognise and support the value of the creative industries. They are one of our most important sectors and the UK is among the world leaders. Advertising alone contributes £7.8 billion to the UK economy and is the second biggest contributor to the UK’s creative industries, which accounts for 3% of gross domestic product. The UK advertising spend is forecast to grow by almost 4% this year. The value of advertising exports amounts to £1.5 billion-worth of services—nearly 2% of all exports. A large part of that value, over many years, relates to alcohol advertising.

The UK has shown the best innovation in the sector and our original thinking and advertising is admired throughout the world. I hope you will indulge me for a minute or two, Mr Dobbin, to remind you, the Minister and Members present of some of the iconic adverts that have been great successes in the UK, have been sold all over the world and have attracted international spend from product marketers. The Heineken adverts were extremely successful and innovative; a whole series was built around a humorous situation in which someone or something, after failing a task, would drink a glass of beer, which would improve their performance—be it shooting plastic ducks in a fairground or speaking English with a cut-glass accent. It all ended with the slogan that the beer

“refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach”.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

I cannot do anything but intervene. When I was in my early teens, I found that Heineken reached parts that nothing else could reach. The only issue is whether that was exclusive to Heineken.

[Alun Cairns]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Perhaps he thought,

“I bet he drinks Carling Black Label”

could have been the slogan we use.