Winner – The International Alliance for Responsible Drinking
The winner of this award won’t surprise many of you – the clue, after all, is in the entity’s name and its overlap with the actual award’s title.
Granted, the industry-funded International Alliance for Responsible Drinking has an advantage thanks to a member list that includes the higher-profile multinational beverage alcohol brand owners. But IARD’s submission detailed its attempts to tackle three particularly timely – and thorny – areas within its remit.
The age-gating of alcohol advertising online may be of little concern on brands and brand owners’ controlled output, but the tech giants still have much work to do. IARD has been working with Google, Meta, Pinterest, Snap, TikTok and X on age-screening technologies across online platforms, complemented by specific platform-appropriate technology, to help ensure alcohol marketing targets only those of legal purchasing age”.
Elsewhere, the pandemic turbo-charged e-commerce sales, with home-delivery being consumers’ only reason to open the front door. IARD has “forged a pioneering partnership with prominent online retailers and e-commerce & delivery platforms, to try to standardise alcohol sales in the channel. Free, online training is now available in around 70 markets for front-line deliverers who work with UberEats, Deliveroo, Just Eat Takeaway.com and DoorDash as well as JD.COM in China.
Finally, the role of influencers as a conduit for marketing has grown to such an extent that the organisation has moved to introduce a benchmark-setting ‘Influencer Pledge’. The partnership with 13 global advertising, public relations and influencer agencies has established a commitment by IARD’s members and partners to “adhere to strict standards in transparency, legal compliance and the promotion of responsible drinking”.
“Being part of the solution and tackling harmful drinking are fundamental to the long-term sustainability of our companies and societies. Good progress is being made and trends in harmful drinking are going in the right direction but there is more to be done to accelerate the pace of change.”
Our judges said: “Credit is due to IARD for pulling together potential solutions to three well-recognised responsible-drinking problems.”
Special Commendation – Diageo Hungary
Over in Hungary, Diageo’s unit in the country pulled together an anti-drink-driving programme using the medium of dance. The novel approach, which drew praise from the awards judges, was brought to life by Attraction Shadow Dance Theater Group and was designed to “foster consciousness by making audiences more responsible consumers who understand the tragic consequences of drink-driving”. The activation, which centred around an online video, drew around 10m views across four continents, with “strong engagement” in the US, Croatia and Bulgaria.
