TV Adverts that make you wish for death.

[Proudhuff]

If it weren't for advertising, politics, and law, there'd be nothing for contemporary sophists to do.

That's a fallacious argument

[The Legendary Shark]

Indeed it is. There'd still be this - and, of course, that.

[Bad Andy]

The damage they do perhaps?  obvs the ads work or they wouldn't be doing so many, and gambling especially online, is a horrible addiction: whole lives, families and communities destroyed.

So by extension there should be no alcohol ads?

[Tjm86]

Alcohol ads?  Hmmm.  Well, smoking ads have been banned pretty much everywhere due to the health risks involved.  A quick google search turns up these little gems though:

[all figures per annum]

Smoking deaths: 100 000        Drink related deaths:  6 600

So it looks like the smoking advertising ban is thoroughly justified.

Then a bit of a further dig into some of these figures:

Cost to NHS -            Smoking £2bn            Drinking   £3.5bn
Hospital admissions - Smoking 450 000       Drinking   1 100 000

There is also the matter of how drink is involved in domestic violence, child neglect and abuse, sexual assault and violence, criminal damage and general assault.  Issues that naturally are not relevant to smoking.

So is there a case for advertising bans for alcohol?

[Jim_Campbell]

So is there a case for advertising bans for alcohol?

Quite possibly, yes. Booze companies tend to use the same argument that the tobacco companies used: that advertising is to encourage brand switching,* not to entice people who don't drink into starting. That's probably as much bollocks now as it was when the tobacco companies argued it.

(Let's be honest, any industry that's taking cues from the tobacco industry playbook is almost certainly lying.)

* I don't think I've ever chosen one brand of alcohol over another due to advertising, apart from my early twenties when my choice of cheap draft lager (the primary aim being to procure the largest volume of beer for the least amount of money) could be swayed by whether I was enjoying the Fosters, Carling or Heineken ad campaigns the most at any given time. Even so, a difference of 10p a pint between one or the other in the same pub was more than enough to override any fondness I might have had for Paul Hogan, or whoever… :-)

[The Legendary Shark]

The W.H.O. claims that:

*Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5-29 years.
*Approximately 1.3 million people die each year as a result of road traffic crashes.
*More than half of all road traffic deaths are among vulnerable road users: pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists.
*93% of the world's fatalities on the roads occur in low- and middle-income countries, even though these countries have approximately 60% of the world's vehicles.
*Road traffic crashes cost most countries 3% of their gross domestic product.

Require images of road traffic injuries on all vehicle adverts, registration documents, M.O.T. certificates, etc.? Ban automobile advertising altogether?

The banking industry causes untold misery and death throughout the world - ban banks from advertising as well?

Wars upset things globally quite a lot, too - ban governments and military from advertising?

I doubt it.

Further, is any ban on advertising a ban on free speech?

[Jim_Campbell]

And here comes Shark with more ludicrous false equivalence.

[JayzusB.Christ]

So is there a case for advertising bans for alcohol?

Quite possibly, yes. Booze companies tend to use the same argument that the tobacco companies used: that advertising is to encourage brand switching,* not to entice people who don't drink into starting. That's probably as much bollocks now as it was when the tobacco companies argued it.

(Let's be honest, any industry that's taking cues from the tobacco industry playbook is almost certainly lying.)

* I don't think I've ever chosen one brand of alcohol over another due to advertising, apart from my early twenties when my choice of cheap draft lager (the primary aim being to procure the largest volume of beer for the least amount of money) could be swayed by whether I was enjoying the Fosters, Carling or Heineken ad campaigns the most at any given time. Even so, a difference of 10p a pint between one or the other in the same pub was more than enough to override any fondness I might have had for Paul Hogan, or whoever… :-)

When I started drinking (legally, anyway, I'm not counting the two-litre bottles of cider in fields), it was Budweiser - watery pish.  Gradually I moved to proper lager, then Guinness.  Of course, Guinness advertising was, and probably still is, all-pervasive and very often very good, but I think the reason I started was because everyone here drinks it and it looks attractive - honestly, it's a thing of beauty, a pint of draft Guinness.

I'm an IPA man these days, and I have to admit it's very often the label that sells it to me.  I love a classy or fun label and there are plenty of them out there.  In fact, now I think of it, I didn't like it for years, then I saw one called a 'juicy IPA' which sounded nice, and I never looked back.  I'm easily influenced for a middle-aged man.  I smoke cigars purely because Nikolai Dante's cigar looked nice once.

[The Legendary Shark]

The question was, is there a case for advertising bans for alcohol (presumably in order to reduce the damage done by alcohol)? I would guess that if there is a case, it would be quite weak - hence the examples I suggested. One could easily presume that an alcohol advertising ban might reduce the ill-effects slightly if, for example, a bored person buys alcohol after seeing it on t.v. but buys something else (maybe chocolate or ice cream) if they didn't see an alcohol advert. A ban on advertising corn flakes might well stop one or two people from choking on corn flakes but otherwise, I think, such a ban would have little effect, as with all the examples I suggested.

A better approach may be to mandate that every alcohol advert must be followed or preceded by an advert of the same length explaining the dangers of alcohol - what used to be called a public information film, but paid for by the same company advertising the alcohol - so that individuals can decide for themselves.

I don't know if those awful disposable vape* things are advertised or not but I see many youngsters using them, sucking in fumes that taste of sweets, fruit, and berries. These objects seemed to be aimed at the young because cigarettes taste bloody awful.

*Vape - what a word! It suggests vapour, perceived as harmless, rather than smoke.

[Jim_Campbell]

hence the examples I suggested.

*SIGH*. Drinking serves no actual purpose other than to damage your health. As long as you only moderately poison yourself, the effect is a generally-pleasant intoxication without organ failure and death.

Transportation, for example, serves any number of societally important functions and deaths and injury arising are a byproduct of that, rather than the actual point of it.

(Once we hit reliable, fully autonomous vehicles the entire landscape of transport will change. I strongly suspect people will no longer want to drive — you'll just subscribe to a couple of on-demand services and just schedule a ride, or ping one of the services from your phone or watch for impromptu journeys. Hold-outs who want to drive themselves, I imagine, will rapidly be priced out of this habit by insurance premiums.)

[The Legendary Shark]

Drinking serves a pretty fundamental social purpose to us, who are social animals. (It also serves a pretty big economic purpose.) As with all things, the damage from alcohol only tends to occur with misuse or accident, so saying the purpose of alcohol is to damage one's health seems incorrect. If someone buys me a bottle of something alcoholic for my birthday I don't immediately think, "this swine's trying to kill me," and I doubt you do, either (unless it's me doing the giving ;-) ).

Once again, the question was whether banning advertising alcohol would have any positive impact on its deleterious effects, and my current position is that it would have no significant positive effect but warning adverts alongside them might be a little more effective.

[Jim_Campbell]

so saying the purpose of alcohol is to damage one's health seems incorrect.

No, sorry. What do you think intoxication is? It's poisoning. The aim of consuming alcohol (for the most part) is to achieve some degree of intoxication, whether it be gentle buzz, a little loosening of social anxieties, mild stress relief, not-so-mild stress relief, right through to getting throwing-up-blacking-out-and-waking-up-in-a-ditch drunk. All of those scenarios involve poisoning yourself, because that's what alcohol intoxication is, the difference is degree.

As someone who is almost certainly fonder of a drink than they should be, I say this not as some kind of prohibitionist puritan, simply as someone who's tried to make an informed choice about how much of a trade-off I want to make between inevitably shortening my life, and having a few vices that help to make life worth living.

[The Legendary Shark]

Okay, I understand your point. However, the same could be said for many things from refined sugar to monosodium glutemate to aspartame to cannabis to tobacco to coffee, and many more besides, including a fair few medicines. I grant you that alcohol is a mild poison, but I think that claiming it's purpose is to poison (without adding the 'intoxication is a form of poisoning' caveat) is a little misleading. I can get onboard with the idea that the purpose of alcohol is to induce intoxication through a form of poisoning, but not with the idea that alcohol's purpose is simply to poison because that paints only half a picture.

I too have a can of cider earmarked for an after-work refresher today because I've been cutting down trees and hedges all day and sweating cobs. It was not advertising, however, that led me to this course of action.