Word: seagrams
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...boss was Edgar Bronfman. Heir to the Seagram spirits business, he had devoted his early years to building the company founded by his father into a multibillion-dollar empire. Only when his ardently Zionist father died in 1971 did Edgar rediscover his faith. For the past 20 years, he has expended much of his formidable energy and much of his time on the activities of the World Jewish Congress. Bronfman first transformed the relatively passive fund-raising charity into a prime mover of Jewish causes. He has personally bankrolled much of the organization's work and used his stature...
...biggest sellers last year were Seagram's Absolut vodka (3.3 million cases, up 5.2%) and Grand Met's Jose Cuervo tequila (2.5 million cases, up 6%), brands that are heavily marketed. And therein lies a potential problem: Congress is contemplating hearings on the advertising of alcoholic beverages...
Nevertheless, Seagram, which spent $21 million in liquor advertising last year, wants to level the TV playing field. Alcohol is alcohol, goes the argument. Thus far, the networks seem inclined to abide by the ban, but that could change if the Crown Royal campaign is a hit. And if instead it goads Congress into action, then maybe beer and wine will get kicked off prime time as well...
...real issue, says Arthur Shapiro, Seagram's executive vice president of marketing strategy, is equal access in a radically fragmented media landscape. "The use of electronic advertising for products like spirits has undergone change," he says, "and so have people relative to those changes." Translation: this is the jaded 1990s, and our ads are nothing compared to the stuff people see on cable and the Internet, so get off our case...
...likely. "Advertising for distilled spirits is already going after younger people," says Jeffrey Hon of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, citing recent Dewar's Scotch and Southern Comfort campaigns in such youth-culture bibles as Details and Rolling Stone. Shapiro says Seagram has taken "great pains that our advertising doesn't appeal to or aim at children," an iffy claim during a campaign that uses "Valedictorian" as a punch line. Why violate the ad ban? Market share. Hard liquor is slipping, and TV is where tomorrow's customers...