As you may or not know, there are a whole raft of things you can’t do, say, suggest or even obliquely hint at when advertising alcohol. For example you can’t in any way target (or even suggest the mere existence of) anyone under the age of eighteen; nor can you refer to alcohol as being able to affect your health or your performance in, say, sporting or sexual terms. Nor of course should machinery (especially driving) be mentioned. This is all for good reason of course, and indeed speaking as a brewery with an advertising budget equal to the retail price of a Creme Egg, we could suggest this ‘Code Of Practice' should go further, if only to prevent bigger breweries from advertising – although after further thought if the big boys stopped advertising they may end up have enough money left over to spend on putting some flavour in, so maybe they should all keep advertising. Anyway, as a result of this code, some ad campaigns fall foul…
Anyway remember ‘Guinness Is Good For You’? A few years ago now, but still a remembered slogan – and now one that is banned. This week it is the turn of Courage, an old brewing dynasty of yore that these days is but contract-brewed brand emanating from Wells & Youngs, not far from here, in Bedford. Can you guess the problem yet? Yup. A beer called Courage can’t be advertised because it might suggest it provides you with Courage. Now obviously I would be foolish, naive, and blatantly incorrect to suggest that anyone has ever had a swift pint or two before, lets say for arguments sake, asking someone out on a date – but this is what the Advertising Standards Authority think. No doubt the fact that the adverts in question do suggest this is probably partly responsible for their decision to ban the latest ad campaign for Courage bitter. However, their public comments on the matter do seem to suggest that they object to the very word Courage being used. So how the hell is the beer to be advertised? Perhaps just the well known Courage logo should appear without any wording? Trouble is, that logo is a Cock*. Errr…
*As in a Cockerel, a male fowl. Obviously.
