KEY POINTS:
Television advertisements highlighting drinking problems have got the thumbs down from a woman bar manager who complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about their content.
However the authority's complaints board did not uphold two complaints from F. Seccombe.
One of the ads depicts a woman named Lisa who gets progressively more intoxicated and ends up being dragged into an alley, and the other a man who gets drunk and violent.
On-screen text for both of the ads says "It's not the drinking, it's how we're drinking" and graphics show the Alcohol Advisory Council (Alac) logo, an 0800 number and a website address.
Ms Seccombe said she was a bar manager, with certification, and operated under Government guidelines and rules and police scrutiny.
"In both ads mentioned, a person is visibly seen getting drunk and out of control in a public place.
"In all my training in New Zealand, it is illegal under the law to serve an intoxicated person and as a host I am supposed to care for clients and how they drink." She said neither ad showed any obligation of bar managers to refuse service to the people shown and this went against New Zealand standards.
"Should not the ad say 'It's not what we are drinking nor is it how we are drinking, it is how alcohol is being served to us'?" Ms Seccombe asked.
Alac said it would expect a qualified bar manager to be aware of the provisions of the Sale of Liquor Act and refuse service to drunken patrons.
But the focus of the ads was on the drinker, and not the bar staff.
"The advertisements mirror what is, unfortunately, happening every week in New Zealand."
It said the advertisements were hitting home with those people who recognised the binge drinking pattern.
The advertising agency, Clemenger BBDO, said the objective of the ads was to change behaviour.
The board said it was necessary to show legally borderline or even illegal behaviour in advertisements of the sort it was considering where they aimed to disseminate social messages and change behaviour.
- NZPA
