KEY POINTS:
Graphic new television ads on binge drinking may be upsetting some but they seem to be having the desired effect.
Within a week of the controversial adverts from the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand showing this month - including one in which a drunken man whirls a small child around before the child smashes into furniture - calls to the nationwide Alcohol Drug Helpline had shot up.
After one week they had increased from an average of 35 a day to 48. After two weeks the number was 53 calls a day, said Alcohol Drug Association New Zealand chief executive Cate Kearney.
On one day, 92 calls were made to the helpline. Calls are currently averaging about 50 per day.
"What's even more significant is that over 80 per cent of those that called due to the advertising had never called the helpline before.
"That means the ads are hitting home with people who recognise the binge-drinking pattern," Ms Kearney said. "It's given them the motivation to do something about it and seek help."
In its first couple of days on air, the "It's How We're Drinking" television campaign attracted 15 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority.
The complaints, many about the timing of the ads being played, will be considered by the ASA board next month.
Ms Kearney said 90 per cent of helpline callers who commented on the ads had expressed their appreciation of them. "The message is penetrating their consciousness, and people are getting the message that binge drinking is not OK."
Other ads in the campaign feature a drunken woman who becomes easy prey for a waiting lecherous man, and a man whose drinking lands him on his bathroom floor vomiting in front of his bewildered daughter.
Ms Kearney said it was particularly disturbing to hear male callers who had mentioned they'd seen a vulnerable woman in the position of the person in the ad, and had done nothing to stop her predicament.
