Ah, alcoholism. The greatest escape from the travails of reality for the modern youth. The poison which takes them through the week – only to go on another bender on the weekend – to forget problems of the past week, and get prepared for the week to come. The weekend enjoyment for many a folk. The thing that many people live for, on which they spend insane amounts, just to get that few hours of escape from the mundanity and problems of modern life. Alcohol.
But has teen drinking been influenced by Advertising? Such as on television, radio and magazines? Well, the answer is both yes and no.
No, because alcohol advertising is banned in India. Yes, because there are workarounds to it. Such as surrogate advertising, such as lowkey ads through product placements in movies and the like. But mostly by seeing it become a common part of TV shows, movies and the like, where it has become a symbol of status and the high life.
What’s surrogate advertising you ask?
Well, it’s simple. Advertising alcohol explicitly on media is forbidden. In such a situation, creative minds came up with a nice solution.
Instead of branding and advertising a drink as alcohol, they market their entire brand on media as ‘Soda’.
You must have seen ads such as ‘Haywards 5000 – Soda,’ or ‘Bagpiper Soda’, or hoardings of Heineken and Carlsberg which have the same word ‘Soda’ specified on it somewhere. Yeah, that’s surrogate advertising. Marketing a product under a different name, even though we all know what it means. In some cases, they may actually have the soda for sale as well, but that is just a front for their main product – alcohol.
How does Lowkey Advertising and Product Placement work to influence teens?
Again, it’s simple. You showcase the product in a certain movie or television show, preferably with the protagonist using it. Thus, the viewers who connect and fall for the protagonist, and who want to emulate him or her, will go and buy that product. It can also be done subtly, by just showing the product in a few frames, where it is visible, but does not get prominence. A lowkey variant of the same thing, so that it isn’t in your face. After all, who likes hard-selling?
More commonly though, it happens inadvertently for alcohol. Teens see that their favourite characters like a drink – or ten – and they seek to emulate it. They want to appear cool to their peers, they want to appear as if they are into it. Thus, they turn to it. Eventually, they become addicted to the feeling of high, and the escape it provides from the problems of modern life.
Thus, advertising is not to blame for teens becoming addicted to alcohol, since it is overtly banned. However, the portrayal of alcohol in modern media is such that they inadvertently want to try it out, and get hooked to it.
After all, the forbidden fruit tastes sweetest, eh?
