Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Alcohol sponsorship back in the spotlight

Alcohol sponsorship back in the spotlight EDITORIAL Editorial Professor Michel Desbordes, Université Paris-Saclay, France Email: desbordes_michel@orange.fr Over the 2014 Christmas period a group of leading are citing the advent of social media as a catalyst for UK health experts, including the president of the Royal the new problems. College of Physicians and the chair of council at the French addication specialist Professor Michel British Medical Association, wrote an open letter to the Reynaud, for example, says: “Social networks have Guardian newspaper calling for an alcohol sponsorship democratised consumption of alcohol and proclaimed ban in sport. The debate on the subject has been drunkeness as a status symbol.” running since tobacco sponsorship was banned in This would clearly suggest that any alcohol sponsors European (EU) countries in 2006. (and indeed non-sponsors) need to be very cautious In this edition of the Journal we introduce further about how their campaigns are activated via social research to the debate with a paper from Sarah Kelly media. et al, senior academics in Australia, who demonstrate What is of major concern, however, is the call the level of sponsorship activation among alcohol for a ban on alcohol sponsorship without serious companies; in particular, they point to social media consideration for what appear to be the real causes activation, which is largely unregulated and appears of problematic drinking. Governments could invest to break the code of practice agreed by the alcohol time and resources bringing new laws onto the statute industry. books only to find that alcohol-related problems By and large, this paper calls for a ban on alcohol remain. This would simply put back the point at which sponsorship in sport, and in Australia a significant the real problems are addressed and many lives will be number of major sports have agreed to a voluntary ban destroyed in the meantime. based on the government replacing sponsor fees with a Whether or not an alcohol sponsorship ban is major grant to sports bodies. worthwhile remains open for debate. Our sister The other side of the coin is a paper published publication, Sponsorship Today, recently undertook a in this Journal in 2009 by Fiona Davies of Cardiff survey which showed that globally beer companies University, which examined the effects of both sporting alone spent $1.4 billion on sport. It found no pattern involvement and alcohol sponsorship on underage between national sponsorship spend and national drinking. Her findings were that although sponsorship consumption. That is a lot of money to take out of appeared to have a small effect, it was very little in professional sports funding, so legislators need to think comparison to sports culture, the inference being that long and hard about what should be the next step. In an alcohol sponsorship ban would have very little the meantime, as ever, we aim to inform the debate impact on consumption. with continued professional research. Indeed, evidence from France, where alcohol sponsorship was banned with the introduction of the Loi Envin [law] in 1991, sheds very little light on whether the bans have any effect. France was undergoing a period of steady decline in consumption before the ban and this has continued. However, since the ban was introduced, there has been a marked increase in binge drinking among young people. Some 1: ‘Le binge-drinking’ takes hold of France as alcohol-related hospital admissions rise by 30%’. Daily Mail, 27 March 2013. Retrieved from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2300082/France-sees-sharp-rise-alcohol-related-emergency-hospitalisations.html l l JANUARY 2015 International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship 1 SMS16.2 intro FINAL.indd 81 03/02/2015 16:32 http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship Emerald Publishing

Alcohol sponsorship back in the spotlight

Download PDF
1 page

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/alcohol-sponsorship-back-in-the-spotlight-Tu6v4O5QoF
Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN
1464-6668
DOI
10.1108/IJSMS-16-02-2015-B001
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

EDITORIAL Editorial Professor Michel Desbordes, Université Paris-Saclay, France Email: desbordes_michel@orange.fr Over the 2014 Christmas period a group of leading are citing the advent of social media as a catalyst for UK health experts, including the president of the Royal the new problems. College of Physicians and the chair of council at the French addication specialist Professor Michel British Medical Association, wrote an open letter to the Reynaud, for example, says: “Social networks have Guardian newspaper calling for an alcohol sponsorship democratised consumption of alcohol and proclaimed ban in sport. The debate on the subject has been drunkeness as a status symbol.” running since tobacco sponsorship was banned in This would clearly suggest that any alcohol sponsors European (EU) countries in 2006. (and indeed non-sponsors) need to be very cautious In this edition of the Journal we introduce further about how their campaigns are activated via social research to the debate with a paper from Sarah Kelly media. et al, senior academics in Australia, who demonstrate What is of major concern, however, is the call the level of sponsorship activation among alcohol for a ban on alcohol sponsorship without serious companies; in particular, they point to social media consideration for what appear to be the real causes activation, which is largely unregulated and appears of problematic drinking. Governments could invest to break the code of practice agreed by the alcohol time and resources bringing new laws onto the statute industry. books only to find that alcohol-related problems By and large, this paper calls for a ban on alcohol remain. This would simply put back the point at which sponsorship in sport, and in Australia a significant the real problems are addressed and many lives will be number of major sports have agreed to a voluntary ban destroyed in the meantime. based on the government replacing sponsor fees with a Whether or not an alcohol sponsorship ban is major grant to sports bodies. worthwhile remains open for debate. Our sister The other side of the coin is a paper published publication, Sponsorship Today, recently undertook a in this Journal in 2009 by Fiona Davies of Cardiff survey which showed that globally beer companies University, which examined the effects of both sporting alone spent $1.4 billion on sport. It found no pattern involvement and alcohol sponsorship on underage between national sponsorship spend and national drinking. Her findings were that although sponsorship consumption. That is a lot of money to take out of appeared to have a small effect, it was very little in professional sports funding, so legislators need to think comparison to sports culture, the inference being that long and hard about what should be the next step. In an alcohol sponsorship ban would have very little the meantime, as ever, we aim to inform the debate impact on consumption. with continued professional research. Indeed, evidence from France, where alcohol sponsorship was banned with the introduction of the Loi Envin [law] in 1991, sheds very little light on whether the bans have any effect. France was undergoing a period of steady decline in consumption before the ban and this has continued. However, since the ban was introduced, there has been a marked increase in binge drinking among young people. Some 1: ‘Le binge-drinking’ takes hold of France as alcohol-related hospital admissions rise by 30%’. Daily Mail, 27 March 2013. Retrieved from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2300082/France-sees-sharp-rise-alcohol-related-emergency-hospitalisations.html l l JANUARY 2015 International Journal of Sports Marketing & Sponsorship 1 SMS16.2 intro FINAL.indd 81 03/02/2015 16:32

Journal

International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship – Emerald Publishing

Published: Jan 1, 2015

There are no references for this article.