The hottest trend in the spirits business these days is not raspberry vodka or pomegranate martinis, but something far less intoxicating: self-regulation.
To counter accusations that alcohol companies produce slick, sexy ads that promote underage drinking, Allied Domecq, owner of brands like Sauza, Stolichnaya, Malibu and Kahlúa, plans to release a report this week detailing the findings of its self-regulatory marketing review board.
The board, comprising six people who are not employed full time by Allied Domecq, reviews the company's advertising before it is released.
"If we say no to a particular campaign, it doesn't run," said board member Lisa Graham Keegan, an educational consultant and a former member of the Arizona House of Representatives. The company, however, has the final word on any individual advertisement.
The board, which was set up in 2003, meets four times a year; members are each paid $20,000 annually. Board members say that on numerous occasions they have vetoed ads that they deemed too risqué or inappropriate.
Ms. Keegan said the board was likely to reject any ad that was overtly sexual or suggests that drinking alcohol would make people act wild and crazy. According to the report, she and other board members vetoed a magazine ad featuring a man and a woman dancing suggestively on a table at a dinner party.
The group also quashed the idea of Allied Domecq becoming a Nascar sponsor, because that would create an association between alcohol and driving. The board similarly decided to stop supporting a watercraft race championship in Spain.
Diageo, the world's largest spirits company, is among those that take a different view. The company sponsors the Nascar driver Kurt Busch through two of its brands. Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser sponsors Dale Earnhardt, while Busch is lead sponsor of the Nascar Busch Series.
That Allied Domecq submits its marketing to a review board shows how far some in the business are willing to go to pre-empt government regulation and avoid consumer backlash. Currently, five lawsuits filed in state courts are seeking to hold liquor and beer companies accountable for what the lawsuits say is irresponsible marketing. Allied is one of the companies named in the suits.
"Thanks to our review board, we are more confident than ever that our decision-making can withstand external scrutiny," Philip Bowman, the chief executive of Allied Domecq, wrote in the report, a copy of which was given to The New York Times.
Other Allied Domecq marketing review board members are: Jodie Bernstein, a lawyer at Bryan Cave in Washington and a former director of consumer protection at the Federal Trade Commission; Hugh Burkitt, director of the Marketing Society, a group of advertising executives in England; Guillermo Cabanellas a lawyer and former commissioner of the Argentine International Trade Commission; Keith Evans, an official with the South Australian Department of Health; and Jose Massaguer, a professor of law who is active in advertising regulation in Spain.
In the late 1990's, at the urging of Congress, the Federal Trade Commission completed an investigation of alcohol advertising and underage drinking and urged the industry to do more in the way of self-regulation.
In response, the industry's chief trade group, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, set up codes of conduct for member. Recommendations include avoiding images of cartoon characters that appeal to people under age 21 and shunning ads that promote "the intoxicating effects of beverage alcohol consumption." Companies are under no obligation to adopt the codes.
Jim O'Hara, executive director at the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University, which monitors the liquor industry, said companies needed to do more. The council's guidelines state that alcohol ads should run only in media outlets with no more than 30 percent of its audience under 21. Mr. O'Hara said he thought that guideline should be stronger. "The threshold should be more like 15 percent," he said.
Despite the efforts of Allied Domecq and the Spirits Council, many alcohol ads are not exactly chaste. A lawsuit in Colorado cites an ad for Bacardi rum that shows a woman standing on a bar stool, pouring rum down the front of her chest. A man licks the rum off her exposed midriff. "Vegetarian by day. Bacardi by night," reads the tagline. Bacardi is owned by Bacardi Brands.
That suit and the other four pending seek court-ordered restrictions that would bar alcohol ads from running on TV shows and in magazines that have large youth audiences, just the sort of external regulations that the industry is hoping to avoid.