Professional Sports, Alcohol and Kids Are a Bad Mix - Talkback Encouraged

Contact: Mike Scippa, 415-257-2490, michaels@marininstitute.org; Laurie Leiber, 415-257-2499, lauriel@marininstitute.org; both with the Marin Institute

SAN RAFAEL, Calif., Jan. 31 /Standard Newswire/ -- Marin Institute, the alcohol industry watchdog, charges Anheuser-Busch (A-B) with using the Super Bowl to aggressively target young viewers in defiance of beer industry standards that limit beer advertising to programs with at least 70 percent adults. According to a Weekly Reader survey, after last year's Super Bowl, a third of viewers were under 18. Moreover, kids cited the commercials as the leading reason for tuning into the game. This presents an extraordinarily ripe opportunity for exploitation by Anheuser-Busch and they have risen mightily to the challenge. No fewer than 10 A-B ads are scheduled to air during the game to an audience that Weekly Reader predicts will include more kids than last year.

"We're outraged that Anheuser-Busch continues as the principal advertiser for a program that attracts the largest youth audience of any TV program of the entire year," said Bruce Livingston, executive director of Marin Institute. "Given that the youth audience is expected to be above the industry standard of 30 percent, Anheuser-Busch should immediately pull its ads."

Adding insult to injury, A-B is expected to use some of its Super Bowl spots to launch Bud.TV - their risky Web-based portal to round-the-clock "branded entertainment." Although logging onto the Bud.TV site will require age verification, the content is designed to be downloaded and shared on sites without age filters including YouTube and MySpace. "Bud.TV is ushering in the age of broadband pornohol," stated Livingston. "There's a new Web predator coming to your kid's computer courtesy of Anheuser-Busch."

The Super Bowl is a proven vehicle for reaching young audiences. A-B introduced the Budweiser Frogs during the Super Bowl broadcast in 1995. Within a year, school children 9 to11 years old knew the Bud frogs better than Tony the Tiger or Smokey Bear. Recent research shows that the more young people are exposed to alcohol advertising, the more likely they are to drink prior to turning 21. Also, the estimated economic value to the alcohol industry of underage drinking was nearly $50 billion in 2001.

"Anheuser-Busch clearly profits from underage drinking," said, Livingston, "and from the heavy, dependent drinking that is more likely when young people start drinking too soon. The stakes are too high, the health and well-being of young people are in jeopardy. We can't allow beer marketers to exploit such powerful means of reaching impressionable young consumers."

Marin Institute encourages concerned Super Bowl viewers to use TalkBack, an online consumer complaint system found at http://www.marininstitute.org, to register their concerns about Anheuser-Busch's exploitation of the Super Bowl to target youth. TalkBack complaints go to the Beer Institute, an industry trade group, with a copy to the Federal Trade Commission, the federal agency that oversees the alcohol industry's compliance with its voluntary ad standards.

Marin Institute is a national alcohol industry watchdog based in San Rafael, CA.