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Beware: Irresponsible Guinness Advertising Will Ruin Your Child*** Details of How APCON Banned All Guinness Commercials For Abusing Advertising Laws

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The next time any commercial of Guinness, the alcohol beverage from Diageo, appears on your television set make sure that your child is not close by.

This is because result from a research has confirmed that alcohol advertising and the degree of exposure to alcoholic advertisements affect consumption by youth. The results, also showed that the youths who saw more alcohol advertisements drank more, as each additional advertisement seen increased the number of drinks consumed by one percent.

This was why in an attempt to curb the negative trend in irresponsible alcohol advertising, Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), a regulatory body in charge of controlling the practice of advertising in Nigeria recently sanctioned Guinness for their irresponsible advertising on the electronic media.

Investigations by www.theoctopusnews.com, revealed that Guinness was recently sanctioned by APCON for abusing the Nigerian Code of Advertising Practice Article 39.

Further digs revealed that to check the flagrant violations, APCON sometime in February this year banned all alcohol advertising (both terrestrial and satellite) from the stable of Guinness Nigeria Plc, over what was termed deliberate breach of the code’s Article 39, which states that “advertisements for alcohol beverage shall not be aired between 6.00am and 8.00pm on radio and between 6.00am and 10.00pm on television.”

The Article 34 for outdoor advertising also says that advertisements for alcohol beverages shall not be sited within a radius of 200 meters from nearest perimeter fence of any place of worship, hospital, school, or motor parks.

These are codes which Guinness Nigeria Plc, have abused extensively over the years due to what has been termed APCON’s ineptitude and lack of effective and extensive monitoring.

Our investigation revealed how Guinness Nigeria Plc, abused the codes severally. For instance, Guinness ‘Made of More’ commercial was aired on DSTV platform on Saturday February 2, 2013 at 16.40 hour west Africa time (4.40pm) during the CAF Nations Cup match between Ghana and cape Verde, and during English Premier League Live matches even after warnings and notifications from the regulatory body, as Article 34 states that “advertisements for alcoholic beverages shall not be sited within a radius of 200 meters from the nearest perimeter fence of any place of worship, hospital, school, or motor park.”

Again, in certain areas of the Lagos metropolis, such as Pen Cinema, in the Agege area, a billboard bearing Guinness “Made for More” is overlooking a motor park.

On television, Guinness Nigeria begins advertisement of its premium stout brand-Guinness Extra Stout as early as 12.45pm lunch time kick of EPL on Saturday on DStv, besides co-sponsoring live broadcast of EPL on DStv. This abuse of professional ethic would continue until 8.00pm when the last live match for the day is shown.

Realising that they were going to lose huge sums of money if APCON shut down their advertising campaign, a letter was written by Marketing Director of Guinness Nigeria, Austin Ufomba. In the letter, Ufomba, assured that in future, the brand would not involve in any breach of the APCON code of advertising practice.

A concern father, Mike Adekunle, when asked of his opinion in line with Guinness deliberate abuse of Advertising regulatory code said” it is a shame that Diageo, makers of Guinness are a selfish company interested in only selling its product at the detriment of children and youths”.

However, as it is now, and with the observation that youths are being initiated into drinking at an earlier age, due to Guinness Irresponsible alcohol advertising, it is safe to assume that anytime you spot older children, adolescents, and young adults involved in an accident leading to serious injuries or death, then it can be safely assumed that Guinness Nigeria Plc, is responsible for that situation simply because of the negative effect of their irresponsible alcohol advertising both on television and outdoor mediums.

-Hamid Kowode (member of Mi5)

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