Social
AB InBev marked this year’s Global Beer Responsible Day with a full month of moderate drinking initiatives in more than 40 countries. Activities ranged from holding no-alcohol beer tastings and brewery tours for the media to visiting bars, restaurants and retailers to promote the “Beer is the drink for moderation” message.
In South Korea, AB InBev’s OB Beer division launched a two-week underage drinking prevention campaign, ‘Precious Person’, for the third consecutive year. OB partnered with the Yeokjeon Grandma Beer hospitality chain to raise awareness of the importance of age verification for all alcohol sales. The campaign offered consumers the chance to win prizes by participating in online responsible drinking quizzes.
In Romania, Asahi’s Ursus Breweries continued to expand its long-running ‘About Alcohol’ responsible drinking project. ‘About Alcohol’ has reached millions of consumers since launching in 2010 through its dedicated website, a new podcast and other activations including teacher training workshops. Around 12,000 people have downloaded the project’s ‘Zero to Thousand’ road safety app, which was launched in partnership with the Traffic Police and the Institute of Forenseminasic Medicine. The app helps motorists estimate how long it takes for their BAC level to return to zero after consuming alcohol.
In Denmark, Carlsberg created the world’s smallest bottle of beer for an innovative new campaign. Partnering with materials experts and a miniature artist, the brewer created a bottle as small as a grain of rice and containing a single drop of no-alcohol beer – a symbol of moderate and responsible drinking.
“To promote responsible drinking, we present our most moderate idea ever. The world’s smallest beer holds only one-twentieth of a millilitre and is so small that it’s easy to miss. But the message is much bigger: we want to remind people of the importance of drinking responsibly.”
Diageo launched a responsible drinking campaign in the UK, designed to improve consumer understanding of alcohol units and the relative strength of different types of alcoholic drinks. The ‘Fancy That’ activation challenges the preconception that mixed beverages contain more units than other drinks, encouraging spirits drinkers to make use of mixers to help moderate their alcohol consumption. “Hopefully, with greater knowledge about alcohol units, moderation can become less about restriction and more about enjoying what you fancy, responsibly,” the brand owner said.
Heineken has also launched a new moderation campaign around alcohol content and pacing, The message ‘Low. Slow. No.’ is at the heart of the campaign. Low reminds consumers of the power of choice, and how no-& low-alcohol options give them full control of how much and when they drink. Slow stresses that moderation also means slowing down, and making social occasions more enjoyable by pacing oneself, and no highlights that sometimes the best option is not to drink at all, such as during pregnancy, while underage, or driving. Heineken’s packaging also hosts QR codes that link to useful information, helping consumers make informed decisions.
Over in Japan, Suntory said that almost 35,000 consumers attended its ‘Drink Smile’ responsible drinking seminars by the end of September, reaching the project’s annual target of 30,000 people ahead of schedule. The group has been promoting the importance of drinking in moderation since 1986, and in 2011 launched new responsible drinking seminars for companies and local governments.
By 2024, Suntory had reached 64,000 people through its seminars and launched the “Drink Smile” workshops, adding the concept of “preserving alcohol culture” to its responsibility message to communicate the appropriate and diverse ways one can enjoy alcohol in moderation.
Environment
Bacardi partnered with environmental NGO Say Earth in India to create a mini forest near its offices in Gurgaon, as part of its ongoing ‘Good Spirited’ corporate sustainability programme. The company’s team in the country helped to plant 9,000 saplings across 40 different native species, using a dense planting method that encourages faster growth, richer biodiversity and healthier soil. The new forest contributes towards restoring local ecology and strengthening natural habitats, in support of Bacardi’s broader water replenishment goals in India.
Back to Denmark, where scientisits at the Carlsberg Research Laboratory discovered how a single gene determines how some variants of barley offer greater resilience against crops sprouting prematurely before harvest season because of unpredictable weather. The breakthrough could help safeguard food crops against major climate-driven losses by revealing new ways to breed crops that are both resilient to climate extremes and suited for diverse agricultural needs. The research has been made available to scientists and breeders around the world through its publication in the peer-reviewed academic journal Science.
In Scotland, Diageo, Moët Hennessy and Suntory Global Spirits have partnered with the RSPB to restore around 1,000 hectares of peatland at The Oa nature reserve on Islay. The internationally important habitat stores an estimated ten times as much carbon as the entirety of the UK’s forest land, and the project will make the peatland more resistant to flooding, improving resilience against wildfires and providing improved habitat for many species. RSPB Scotland said the “unprecedented” partnership “underlines how working together across industries is vital to restoring Scotland’s nature.”
Governance
In the US, Brown-Forman has been celebrating the 15th anniversary of Jack Daniel’s ‘Operation Ride Home’ partnership with the Armed Services YMCA (ASYMCA) military charity. To date, the project has helped to reunite over 14,000 US service members with their families for the holidays. The campaign has raised over US$4m to help service members over the last 15 years, and Brown-Forman has increased its annual campaign kick-off donation to $150,000 to mark the anniversary.
In South Korea, Lotte Chilsung partnered with Special Olympics Korea to host the tenth Super Blue Marathon in Seoul. The annual event is one of Lotte’s main social activities, encouraging respectful and inclusive language around disability through a 5km ‘marathon’ for people with and without disabilities to run together. This year, around 8,000 participants joined the event.
Finally, in Germany, Pernod Ricard sponsored ten international scholars to attend the annual ‘One Young World’ leadership conference. This year’s event, which was held in Munich, marked the fourth year of the tie-up between Pernod’s ‘Drink More Water’ responsible drinking initiative and One Young World, and the second that the brand owner has sponsored a group of participants.
