Marketing beer in Israel
Shoshana Weiss

The arguments about the regulation of trade, as set out in the previous article, are particularly relevant to the question of marketing alcohol to young people. Here we summarise a new global status report on alcohol and young people, see how effective advocacy is countering the threat of alcopops in the United States, and, to begin, look at the marketing of alcohol in Israel.

Part of the increase in alcohol problems reported in Israel in the last decade may be attributable to the consumption of beer. Wines and some distilled spirits originated from grapes, rather than beer, have traditionally been Israeli-Jewish drinks. On the other hand, according to a nationwide study, beer was the most popular alcohol beverage among adolescents, until 1998 when it was replaced by wine. Consumption of beer may be influenced by advertisements and, indeed, there are more advertisements for beer in newspapers, magazines, and on Israeli television channels than for wines and distilled spirits.

This may reflect the fact that the use of wines is more integral to learning about drinking within the framework of Jewish religious and family life, whereas it is more likely that beer drinking is encouraged by other, non-religious, and foreign influences.

With the absence of regulations on alcohol imports, beers are flowing into Israel from about twenty-five countries in all the five continents to join domestic brands.

The prices of beers in supermarkets are very low and are similar to the prices of mineral water or fruit juices. In addition, a peculiar phenomenon has recently developed in some parts of Israel: in many pubs and clubs, especially those popular with young people, beer is free at weekends, whereas soft drinks are relatively expensive. The aggressive promotion of their brands by the brewers, what might be called the "drink as much beer as you can" phenomenon attracts thousands of youngsters. Furthermore, young women on the staff of the pubs or clubs, promoting the various brands, pour the free beer into the mouths of the youngsters using test tubes or beer-pistols.

Summer is the busiest period in Israel for beer marketing. Every weekend during the summer of 2001, Heineken sponsored concerts for young people using the slogan: "Connect to Heineken on the beach". Tempo Beer Industries (the Israeli producer of Maccabee and Goldstar beers) conducted a huge two day beer festival, with the co-operation of Tel Aviv municipality, under the title: "Tel Aviv – the beer town with the highest Goldstar pub in the world". Most beer brands arranged "marketing festivals" in supermarkets, offering the possibility of prizes, such as computer games, disks, holidays in Israel, T-shirts, picnic sets, and parasols. Also in the summer of 2001, television advertisements on the Israeli commercial channel portrayed women as sex objects (Goldstar), emphasized seduction (Tuborg), or showed a young person making tremendous efforts and suffering considerable trials in order to get hold of one bottle of the best beer (Heineken).

As far as newspaper advertisements are concerned, Tempo Beer Industries continued to create a "competition" between their two brands – Maccabee and Goldstar. Tempo made efforts to increase sales by trying to promote beer as a typical Israeli drink (Maccabee), and by taking advantage of the fact that Israelis like to travel, offering the opportunity to win exotic holidays such as safaris in Kenya, diving in Zanzibar, or gastronomic tours of Tuscany. The more you buy Goldstar beer, the greatest is the chance of winning. One Goldstar advertisement shows three young people around the age of 18 buying hundreds bottles of Goldstar beer in order to increase their chances of winning a holiday. There is no doubt that this advertisement encourages heavy drinking among the young.

A Maccabee beer advertisement attempts to portray their product as a feature of Israeli life. It is in two parts showing a young man delivering pizzas, not a typical Israeli food, and a young man standing near a stand selling watermelon, very much a traditional Israeli food. The text reads: "Be a little of this and a little of this – be an Israeli. Maccabee beer – small country, great beer".

Another advertisement in this Maccabee series of advertisements portrays a woman under the same slogan. The intention is to persuade Israeli women, most of whom prefer wine and distilled spirits, "to be Israeli" and to drink beer.

Another Maccabee beer advertisement implies a connection with the Maccabee Tel Aviv basketball team, which won the European Championship in the summer of 2001. This sporting success brought some joy to the hearts of the Israelis during a difficult phase in the Palestinian conflict.

The headline of the advertisement says: "There are two ways to make the nation happy: the first is Maccabee and the second is Maccabee too". At the bottom the text reads: "The beer of the country welcomes the team of the country... Maccabee beer – small country, great beer". Thus, Tempo Beer Industries exploit the fact that they share a name with a popular team to persuade people to drink their product.

Although Israel is a developed country, it is a third world country as far as alcohol control measures are concerned. There are no laws controlling advertising, other than one which prohibits alcohol advertising in youth magazines, there are no laws regulating the importation of alcohol, and there is ineffectual enforcement of the law which prohibits the sale of alcohol to minors in pubs, clubs, or other public drinking places. It is possible for minors to buy alcohol in supermarkets and grocery stores. The beer producers take advantage of this weakness in the law, flooding the supermarkets with cheap beers, letting various pubs provide free beers to youngsters, producing advertisements aimed at encouraging excessive drinking, and portraying beer as a typical Israeli drink.

There are several things that ought to be done to deal with the situation. In 1994, proposals for the regulation of alcohol advertising were introduced into parliament at the instigation of the Israel Society for the Prevention of Alcoholism (ISPA). The measure passed the initial stages of the law-making process in October of that year. However, strong outside pressure resulted in the transfer of the proposal from the "Drugs and Alcohol Committee" to the "economic Committee", where it was quickly buried. ISPA is currently making efforts to bring this proposal before the parliament once again.

Annually ISPA conducts hundreds of prevention workshops aimed at junior and senior high school students. About 40,000 students participate in these every year. Starting in September 2001, the workshops for junior high school students included the issue of alcohol advertising in Israel. In addition, two new modules on advertising were developed for teachers to use after the workshops and inserted into the "teacher kit" along with the examples of the beer advertisements put out in the summer of 2001.

In September 2001, ISPA began discussions with the police on the enforcement of the law on the supply of beer to minors at "beer festivals" and on the "free alcohol" phenomenon in pubs. The efforts to limit importation of alcoholic beverages and to pass a law prohibiting the sale of alcohol to minors in supermarkets and grocery stores have so far met with no success.

Dr Shoshana Weiss is the Director of the Israel Society for the Prevention of Alcoholism and may be contacted at: aweiss@shani.net