Rethinking Influencers and Alcohol Policy

When Peter H. Cressy, then the head of the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S., set out to make distilled spirits socially acceptable, one of the first things his communications chief, Frank Coleman, did was go to New York and visit lifestyle magazines to interest them in running stories about distilled spirits, especially cocktails and how to make cocktails.

I'll credit Frank with creating the Cocktail Culture that has been so essential in powering distilled spirits sales in the last 25 years. Cressy and Coleman have been retired for 10 or 15 years now, but if they set out to achieve the same mission today, it's almost certain they would also turn to social media influencers. Perhaps Coleman would work with them before visiting the magazines, although it might make more sense to get the magazines on board and then to recruit the influencers.

I'll confess I have a new appreciation for influencers after reading Randy Caparoso's op-ed in Wine Industry Advisor. From that op-ed:

Thank goodness for the influence of influencers. Where would we be without them? They’re telling the meaningful “stories” that we only used to get through bumbling corporations—test-marketed to death by marketing departments and dumbed down by advertising agencies—but with a great deal more of the enthusiasm, spontaneity, originality and innovation that we actually appreciate in real life.

Today’s consumers, influencers such as Georgia Panagopoulou (@wine.gini), constantly remind us, “don’t remember information, they remember what the information means to them.”

Up until now, I've principally viewed influencers as a malign force, basaed on how one influencer devastated Bud Light with one post several years ago. But even this World War II baby, born seven months after Peal Harbor, recognizes the world has changed and many people,– especially those under 40 – get their news primarily from social media.

Where the Industry Goes Wrong

If the industry isn't losing the battle for the minds of consumers on the health aspects of wine – and beer and spirits – it certainly isn't winning, either.

I did a quick test searching for Alcohol and Health of X. With rare exceptions, every single post was anti-alcohol and specifically anti-red wine. Same on Instagram where I searched for "alcohol and health" (nothing) and "wine and health" and was overwhelmed with the number of antiwine messages. I'm not a member of TicTok, so I didn't check that. But I did check Pinterest for Alcohol and Health and again, there were plenty of anti-alcohol message and virtually no positive alcohol messages, at least that I can find.

So, keeping three sayings in mind –

1. Today's consumers don't remember information, they remember what the information means to them.
2. A charge unanswered is a charge admitted, and
3. You have to meet people where they are, and where they increasingly are is social media

-- As far as I can tell, many marketers in fact do use social media as one tool to promote their brands. But it seems the industry needs to get involved in social media as part of an effort to respond to bev/al's critics. The policy response needs to be almost instantaneous, which means there must be social media people watching for anti-alcohol material and responding, ideally, 24/7, 365 days a year.

Obviously, no response can deny the fact that excessive consumption can have serious health consequences. But when anti-alcohol forces use statistics misleadingly, such as implying that a 0,01% increase in cases of cancer dramatically increases any individual's risk of getting cancer, the social media person should be able to translate that into exactly how much that increase increases the odds of that person getting cancer.

It won't do the industry any good to sit around and tell ourselves how unfair these attacks are. Instead, the industry needs, as much as possible, to meet fire with fire, because "a charge unanswered is a charge admitted."