Alcohol brands on Facebook: the challenges of regulating brands on social media

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1466
• Date: 01 August 2013
• Published date: 01 August 2013

■Academic Paper

Alcohol brands on Facebook: the

challenges of regulating brands on social

media

Sven Brodmerkel

1

and Nicholas Carah

2

*

1

Bond University, Communication and Media, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

2

University of Queensland, School of Journalism and Communication, Queensland, Australia

In September 2012, the Australian Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB) made ‘landmark decisions’relating to the use of

Facebook by vodka brand Smirnoff and beer brand Victoria Bitter. The ASB determined that (i) a brand’s Facebook page

is a marketing communication tool, and (ii) all contents on the page fall under the industry’s self-regulatory code of ethics,

including consumer-created content such as user-generated comments and photos. The decisions come in response to a sub-

mission that the authors made regarding the Facebook pages of the two brands. These submissions were based on a research

project that had monitored the use of Facebook by several Australian alcohol brands since the late 2010 to identify how these

brands use social media as experiential social spaces to engage consumers in the co-creation of content. This article reviews

the ruling by analysing the advertisers’response to the complaint, the regulators’justifications for the decisions, andthe pos-

sibilities and limitations of regulating social media in general. It argues that although the ASB has acknowledged that brands

are responsible for all contents on their Facebook pages, the regulators’approach is of limited effectiveness given the way

Facebook allows brands to embed themselves in the mediation of everyday life. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

The effect of alcohol marketing on the consumption

habits of young people is a contested issue among

health researchers, alcohol marketers and policy-

makers (Smith and Foxcroft, 2009; Gordon et al.,

2010; AMA, 2012). Related and equally controver-

sial is the question of how and to what extent

alcohol marketing should be regulated. Many

health researchers discuss the merits of stricter

government regulations and restrictions to be

imposed on alcohol marketing (Jones and Donovan,

2002; Casswell and Maxwell, 2005; Mart et al., 2009;

Jones and Jernigan, 2010; Vendrame and Pinksy,

2011) and criticise the ineffectiveness of the predomi-

nantly self-regulatory system for alcohol advertising

in Australia (Harker et al., 2001; Jones and Donovan,

2002; Munro, 2006; Donovan et al., 2007; Jones et al.,

2008; Pettigrew et al., 2012). Apart from government

scheduling regulations regarding the broadcast of

alcohol advertising on television, all other dimen-

sions of alcohol advertising in Australia are subject

to a self-regulatory system based on Industry Codes

of Practice. Key institutions are the Advertising

Standards Bureau (ASB) and the Alcohol Beverages

Advertising Code (ABAC) Complaints Panel. The

ASB administers the Australian Association of

National Advertiser’s Code of Ethics, which covers

issues such as taste and decency across all product

categories. The ABAC Complaints Panel is responsi-

ble for administering the ABAC, which deals specifi-

cally with alcohol adve rtising.

So far, most of the research in the public health

literature has focused on alcohol advertising in

traditional media (television and print), paying little

attention to other forms of alcohol marketing such

as sponsorships, experiential marketing and other

*Correspondence to: Nicholas Carah, University of Queensland,

School of Journalismand Communication, Queensland, Australia.

E-mail: n.carah@uq.edu.au

Journal of Public Affairs

Volume 13 Number 3 pp 272–281 (2013)

Published online 03 June 2013 in Wiley Online Library

(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1466

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.