17175: Raising A Glass To Recovering Drunks.

September is National Recovery Month. Don’t expect to see performative philanthropic campaigns saluting recovering Don Drapers everywhere.

16333: Replacing Phone Addiction With Alcohol Addiction…?

Wine brand Chateau Ste Michelle and Team One are responsible for this OOH campaign targeting audiences at music venues—asking people to put down their mobile devices and raise a glass instead. Which will undoubtedly lead to more drunken texts. Brilliant.

15976: Electric Car Charging Stations Brand Needs Energy.

“Confessions of a Petroholic”—a podcast miniseries for Fastned from the Netherlands—takes a long, winding road to promote adopting electric vehicles. Creating a loose connection between driving cars and alcoholism is typically frowned upon. Although any frowns in this case are the result of recognizing a mediocre and contrived concept.

 

The Fastned brand is progressive. This campaign is not—it’s a car wreck.

 

15786: Raising The Bar For Diversity…?

 

The latest Digiday confessions series installment features a female executive and recovering alcoholic discussing the challenges of operating in workplaces with booze-soaked cultures. The interview, incidentally, is categorized under a DE&I banner. Does this mean that drunks and drug addicts are now vying for a position in the increasingly crowded diversity, equity and inclusion arena? Suddenly everyone wants a seat at the bar.

 

‘I don’t have to prove my value by drinking’: Confessions of a chief strategy officer and recovered alcoholic

 

By MaryLou Costa

 

More professionals are wanting to call time on alcohol’s connection with work, as surveys show, with more people demanding more meaningful work benefits, like flexible working and enhanced parental leave, over free company events.

 

For the latest in our Confessions series, in which we trade anonymity for candor, we spoke to a chief strategy officer who has been sober for seven years after establishing her career in an alcohol-soaked mid-2000s Silicon Valley. She reflects on the inclusive, pro-choice company culture (regarding drinking) she’s helped build within her current employer, compared with the pressure at previous workplaces to constantly drink.

 

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

 

You’ve been sober for seven years. How do you navigate work events where alcohol is present?

 

I just got back from my first work trip since March 2020. Nobody cared or noticed if you wanted to drink or not. I’ve worked at places where we’d go to happy hour, and I’d say, ‘I’m sober—I’d love a water.’ And people would say things like, ‘I can’t wait until you’re done being sober, so we can party together.’ At a different stage in my journey, that could be off-putting, to the point where I would decide to have a drink.

 

During this latest trip, some people decided to go to a bar, where there was live music and dancing. There was no pressure to go. I drank sparkling water with a colleague. We were enjoying ourselves, watching the dancing, and having a great conversation. Those are things I pay attention to, and a company culture I chose on purpose—because I don’t have to prove my value by drinking.

 

How is that different from environments you’ve worked in previously?

 

They put me in a position where I had to justify why I wasn’t drinking. When I started to work in Silicon Valley, I was so surprised at how embedded alcohol was in the culture. Someone would always have a bottle of whiskey in their drawer. If there was an important decision to be made, we would grab a drink after work to talk through it. I found myself drinking daily, with half of that related to work.

 

What effects did alcohol have on you and the people around you?

 

When I’m drinking, I’m not as smart or as sharp. My ideas aren’t as good. I don’t express myself as clearly. I’m a poor listener. I don’t treat people as well as I want to.

 

I worked for an employer once, who on Friday mornings, would serve orange juice with champagne and coffee with Bailey’s Irish Cream. At all-hands meetings, there would be an open bar. At company parties, executives would go around with trays of shots. It was a lot of pressure. It was so severe I took one of the shots off the tray and tossed it over my shoulder. Everyone was so intoxicated, they didn’t notice.

 

In American culture, maybe in Silicon Valley culture, or tech startup culture, there is an assumed advantage to combining your personal and professional lives. Maybe that’s one of the reasons drinking is so pervasive. An employee wakes up in the morning, goes to work, after work socializes with people from work, continues to talk about work, continues to think about work, and builds out their entire world around that workplace. I think these types of events do foster that way of being.

 

What eventually made you stop drinking?

 

It was something I struggled with, even after speaking with my therapist and doctor. I had tried to be sober for 30 days. It went great, but as soon as the 30 days were up, I went back. I wasn’t able to really make it happen until I had a good reason, and that was getting pregnant. I actually wonder to myself, how it would have happened for me if it hadn’t been because of pregnancy.

 

How did not drinking make you feel?

 

When people speak to me, I’m capable of listening. I’m capable of remembering. I’m capable of accessing my intellectual qualities at all times. I’m capable of expressing myself in exactly the way that I want to. I’m capable of upholding my boundaries.

 

You now work for a remote-first company where drinking is not an inherent part of the culture (although people can choose to). What difference does this make?

 

If we can create inclusive environments where there’s not an expectation to be drinking, maybe you’re getting the best out of your team. Maybe you’re allowing people to feel comfortable and to access the best parts of themselves. I think remote work certainly has changed that. Yes, there are a lot of Zoom happy hours, but there are also so many other things. People’s kids and dogs are on Zoom. People are Zooming in from their backyards. We’ve been able to do things like yoga, cookie decorating and juggling lessons and just be a bit creative. It doesn’t take an enormous amount of innovation.

 

How have you helped intentionally create that culture?

 

There’s something to be said about me being an executive at the company. I’m very open about my sobriety. I say it proudly and others hear it. We want to cultivate connections between folks, and yes, there are the icebreakers and the meditation sessions, but there’s also the decision on a Friday afternoon to just go and do something you love that has nothing to do with work—then on Monday, tell us about it. That’s where our team members are going to get and cultivate positive energy, which we believe is naturally going to translate into higher performance and better collaboration.

15435: Drowning In Drunkenness…?

 

This VeroVino campaign from Brazil seems like it’s celebrating immersive inebriation. Hey, don’t drink and dive… 

 

15238: Wasted On Booze In Brazil.

Critiquing the message of this Alcoholics Anonymous campaign from Brazil would be a waste of time.

15228: Fucked-Up Canucks Welcome On Board…

This campaign from Quebec encourages drunks and druggies to take buses and cabs, respectively. Gee, how nice for commuters and cabbies.

15057: Life Is Temporarily Difficult In Armenia.

This beer campaign from Armenia declares “difficulties are temporary” and people should patiently get drunk. Brilliant.

14753: A Shitty Carlsberg Ad You Can Overlook? Probably.

Drinking and driving is okay—when your vehicle is a bike and your beer is the alcohol-free variety. However, most states have bicycle DUI laws.

14303: Brazilian Booze BS.

This Brazilian campaign encourages coping with everyday hassles by resorting to booze—which will then allow the hackneyed creative team to come up with Alcoholics Anonymous advertising campaigns to counter the effects.

13689: Promoting Alcoholism.

Y&R in Chile seems to believe that liquor is required to handle even mundane daily milestones. Given the serious problem of alcoholism in Chile, this campaign is wildly irresponsible and thoroughly reprehensible.

12596: Don Draper’s Lush Life.

The New York Daily News reported Jon Hamm checked out of a 30-day alcohol rehab program. Talk about life imitating art.

Jon Hamm completes rehab for struggle with alcohol addiction

By Elizabeth Vanmetre | NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Jon Hamm has completed a 30-day program in rehab for alcohol abuse, according to TMZ.

The “Mad Men” star voluntarily checked himself into Silver Hill Hospital in Connecticut before the premiere of the show’s last season.

“With the support of his longtime partner Jennifer Westfeldt, Jon Hamm recently completed treatment for his struggle with alcohol addiction. They have asked for privacy and sensitivity going forward,” a rep for the actor told TMZ.

The final season of “Mad Men” premieres April 5.

12476: Drinking On The Job.

This campaign for Third Shift Amber Lager from MillerCoors was created by Cavalry and The Heads of State. Not too sure about the concept, as it appears to be advocating that late-night workers should drink the brew—perhaps instead of energy drinks? Talk about an industrial accident waiting to happen.

11692: 7UP And Vodka.

Connecting a soft drink and recovering alcoholic with the line, “Drink what you want,” is the move of a desperate brand. Or a shitty advertising agency. Probably both.

11607: A Shot Of Booze.

Looks like Canada is joining Brazil in creating unauthorized ads for Alcoholics Anonymous. A creative director should have shot this concept down.

From Ads of the World.

11372: This Bud’s For Emergencies.

From The New York Post…

Budweiser drinkers most likely to end up in emergency room

By Bryan Hood

It’s long been known that alcohol plays a part in a third of emergency room visits, but a new report finds that some beverages are more likely to factor into those visits than others.

A study done at Johns Hopkins University hospital in Baltimore found that five beers in particular tended to lead to ER trips.

According to “Alcohol Brand Use and Injury in the Emergency Department: A Pilot Study” those were Budweiser, Steel Reserve, Colt 45, Bud Ice and Bud Light.

Two of the brands – Steel Reserve and Colt 45 — are malt liquors, beers known for having a high alcohol content.

Budweiser, which touts itself as the “King of Beers,” was by far the leader in sending people to the E.R. The study found that 15 percent of patients had drank the beverage in the hours leading up to their visit.

The study was the first of its kind.

10700: This Bud’s Not For You.

From The New York Post…

Budweiser wants logo removed from ‘Flight’

From ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES — Denzel Washington’s character in “Flight” drinks a lot throughout the film, but his portrayal of a highly functioning alcoholic pilot isn’t going down well with brewing company Anheuser-Busch or the distributor of Stolichnaya vodka.

Anheuser-Busch said Monday that it has asked Paramount Pictures Corp. to obscure or remove the Budweiser logo from the film, which at one point shows Washington’s character drinking the beer while behind the wheel.

Budweiser is hardly the only alcoholic beverage shown in “Flight,” which earned $25 million in its debut weekend and is likely to remain popular with audiences. Washington’s character frequently drinks vodka throughout the film, with several different brands represented. William Grant & Sons, which distributes Stolichnaya in the United States, also said it didn’t license its brand for inclusion in the film and wouldn’t have given permission if asked.

Although product placement, where companies pay producers to have their brands seen on-camera, have become ubiquitous in movies and television, experts say studios are not obligated to get permission before featuring a product in their work.

Rob McCarthy, vice president of Budweiser, wrote in a statement to The Associated Press that the company wasn’t contacted by Paramount or the production company of director Robert Zemeckis for permission to use the beer in “Flight.”

“We would never condone the misuse of our products, and have a long history of promoting responsible drinking and preventing drunk driving,” McCarthy wrote. “We have asked the studio to obscure the Budweiser trademark in current digital copies of the movie and on all subsequent adaptations of the film, including DVD, On Demand, streaming and additional prints not yet distributed to theaters.”

A spokesman for Zemeckis referred questions to Paramount, which did not return an email message seeking comment.

James Curich, a spokesman for Stoli distributor William Grant & Sons, said the company has a strict code for how the vodka is portrayed in films and is committed to marketing it responsibly. “Considering the subject matter of this film, it is not something in which we would have participated,” he wrote in an email.

Despite the companies’ dissatisfaction with their inclusion in the film, experts say there is little they can do about it legally.

Trademark laws “don’t exist to give companies the right to control and censor movies and TV shows that might happen to include real-world items,” said Daniel Nazer, a resident fellow at Stanford Law School’s Fair Use Project. “It is the case that often filmmakers get paid by companies to include their products. I think that’s sort of led to a culture where they expect they’ll have control. That’s not a right the trademark law gives them.”

Jay Dougherty, a professor at Loyola Law School, said the use of brands in films has generally been protected by the courts, even when the companies aren’t pleased with the portrayals.

“It wouldn’t have been as effective a film if they used a bunch of non-generic brands,” said Dougherty, who is also the director of the school’s Entertainment & Media Law Institute. “In a normal situation, if the alcohol were just there as a smaller part of the movie, they might have created an artificial brand for it.”

Other vodka brands, including Absolut and Smirnoff, are also included in the film. Representatives of those companies did not return messages seeking comment.

Paramount has some experience with a company upset with its inclusion in a film. In 2003 the studio won a case after the makers of the “Slip ‘N Slide” sued over the use of the product in the film “Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star.”

In that case, a court found that requiring Paramount to alter the film and its marketing would “generate more hardship than it alleviates.”

Dougherty and Mark Partridge, a Chicago intellectual property lawyer, also noted that a court rejected an effort to get by Caterpillar Inc. to get its logo removed from tractors driven by the villains in 2003’s “George of the Jungle 2.” The company had argued its trademark was harmed by having its product associated with the film’s villains.

Partridge said with the explosion of product placement in recent years, a company might try to make an argument that by the brand appearing in a film, the audience assumed it had granted permission. “You’d have to have proof that people actually making an association and believing it was authorized,” he said.

“It might be a different world,” he said, adding, “I still think it’s an uphill haul.”

10076: A Case For Boycotting Bud.

From The New York Times…

A Battle With the Brewers

By Nicholas D. Kristof

AFTER seeing Anheuser-Busch’s devastating exploitation of American Indians, I’m done with its beer.

The human toll is evident here in Whiteclay: men and women staggering on the street, or passed out, whispers of girls traded for alcohol. The town has a population of about 10 people, but it sells more than four million cans of beer and malt liquor annually — because it is the main channel through which alcohol illegally enters the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation a few steps away.

Pine Ridge, one of America’s largest Indian reservations, bans alcohol. The Oglala Sioux who live there struggle to keep alcohol out, going so far as to arrest people for possession of a can of beer. But the tribe has no jurisdiction over Whiteclay because it is just outside the reservation boundary.

So Anheuser-Busch and other brewers pour hundreds of thousands of gallons of alcohol into the liquor stores of Whiteclay, knowing that it ends up consumed illicitly by Pine Ridge residents and fuels alcoholism, crime and misery there. In short, a giant corporation’s business model here is based on violating tribal rules and destroying the Indians’ way of living.

It’s as if Mexico legally sold methamphetamine and crack cocaine to Americans in Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez.

Pine Ridge encompasses one of the poorest counties in the entire United States — Shannon County, S.D. — and life expectancy is about the same as in Afghanistan. As many as two-thirds of adults there may be alcoholics, and one-quarter of children are born suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

In short, this isn’t just about consenting adults. Children are born with neurological damage and never get a chance.

“Every person on this reservation has personally seen the negative effects of alcohol, with loved ones or themselves,” said John Yellow Bird Steele, the tribe president.

The only purpose of Whiteclay is to sell to tribe members — there’s nobody else around — and the tribe can’t do anything about it.

“It’s hopeless; the tribe can’t stop the alcohol,” said Kenny Short Bear, 45, who was slumped on the ground outside one of the alcohol stores. He said he was a former teacher who had lost his job and his family because of alcoholism — and then he asked me for $5.

While some Miller, Coors and Pabst beer is sold in the stores, the great majority is Anheuser-Busch products, including Hurricane malt liquor and Budweiser beer.

The tribe says that more than 90 percent of arrests by the tribal police are alcohol-related, along with 90 percent of arrests of juveniles. Children often begin drinking in their early teens.

Alcohol also fuels stunning rates of domestic violence, suicide and crime on the reservation. I spoke to one family that first lost a father to cirrhosis, then a son, killed in a knife fight with his own cousin over a bottle of beer. A few weeks later, the dead man’s younger sister killed herself at age 16.

Since March, I have repeatedly tried to get a comment from Anheuser-Busch or, more recently, its lawyers. The company has had nothing to say, not a peep in its defense.

The Oglala Sioux tribe filed a lawsuit in February against Anheuser-Busch and other brewers, as well as local retailers and distributors. I don’t know how the lawsuit will go, but I’m pretty sure a nationwide boycott of Budweiser would wake the company up.

Victor Clarke, manager of a grocery store in Whiteclay and its unofficial spokesman, acknowledged that the alcohol sold in Whiteclay exacts a huge toll on the reservation. But he said that if these stores closed, Indians would just drive to more distant towns to get a drink.

There’s something to that. As Eli Bald Eagle, who described himself as an alcoholic for more than 20 years, told me unsteadily, “Nobody’s going to stop us from being alcoholics.”

Yet Bald Eagle, like many others, had simply walked into Whiteclay and didn’t have ready access to a car. Certainly it would be more difficult for young people to start on the road to alcoholism if they had to drive to get beer. Studies have found that when there are fewer liquor stores, there is less drinking and fewer alcohol-related crimes.

One nifty solution, proposed by former Senator James Abourezk of South Dakota, would be for the Obama administration to extend Pine Ridge reservation lines to include Whiteclay. No land titles would change hands, but reservation laws would apply and liquor sales would become illegal.

For now, Pine Ridge’s alcohol problem is matched only by Anheuser-Busch’s greed problem. Brewers market beers with bucolic country scenes, but the image I now associate with Budweiser is of a child with fetal alcohol syndrome.

That’s why I’ll pass on a Bud, and I hope you’ll join me.