Beer Makers Get Complaints About Santa-themed Events
Yes, Virginia, that is a beer in Santa’s hand, and no, the Center for Science in the Public interest isn’t happy about it.
The watchdog group has filed a complaint with the Beer institute, a Washington D.C.-based lobbying group, that charges three prominent U.S. beer makers—Coors Light, Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser and Bud Light, and Miller brands including Miller Lite, Leinenkugels and Sparks—with sponsored Santa-themed bar tours and other events.
According to the CSPI, those sponsorships and the accompanying promotional materials violate the Beer Institute’s advertising and marketing guidelines, and specifically one that says beer marketing “should avoid elements that appeal primarily to persons under the legal drinking age” and “should not depict Santa Claus.”
The letter urges the Beer Marketing Institute to advise those members to pull their Kringle-based sponsorships this season.
The complaint from the non-profit group cites Coors and Coors Light for sponsoring “Running of the Santas” pub-crawls in various cities, including 11 locations from Boston to Denver on Dec. 13, 2008. The bar tour, which originated in Philadelphia in 1998, now draws red-suited crowds who pay an entrance fee to hear music and make the rounds of local watering holes. The events usually make contributions to charities such as Alex’s Lemonade Stand.
The CSPI complaint also marked other MillerCoors brands as naughty for sponsoring (and appearing as images on materials for) a Santa-themed “Miracle on 3rd and 4th Street” bar tour in Washington D.C. on Dec. 6.
Anheuser-Busch was blamed for appearing as a sponsor on the MySpace page advertising an “Atlanta Santa Pub Crawl.”
“We can appreciate as much as anyone the fun of Santa costumes and the virtue of donating to charitable causes (which is often the pretext used to legitimize such drinking fests),” CSPI alcohol policies director George A Hacker said in his letter to the lobbying group. “But the use of those events by beer brands and their placement in marketing materials for Santa-themed events are violations, hacker said.
“Even assuming such events are intended only for adults, they often take place (at least in part) outdoors and during daytime or early evening hours, exposing kids and families to the spectacle of a favorite childhood holiday icon being exploited to promote drinking.”
The http://www.RunningoftheSantas.com Web site also contains information for a number of other events centered on the Santas’ Philadelphia hometown, including a St. Patrick’s themed “Running of the Micks” and a two-day Christmas-in-July festival at the Delaware shore entitled “Rudolph’s Revenge.”
