The Promise of Youth

When Kingfisher Airlines was launched in India in December 2004, it was an event that awakened interest, not just because the company was very ambitious but because Kingfisher is primarily a brand of beer. Imagine Carlsberg Airlines. What would that have made you think of, apart from air travel? This is the starting point in ‘The Promise of Youth’, a new booklet co-published by the Global Alcohol Policy Alliance and the Norwegian based international development agency, FORUT.

The multinational beer and liquor giants have designated the developing countries as the new growth sector for alcohol, since consumption in Western countries appears to be stagnating. They call them emerging markets and consider them promising: low alcohol consumption as a point of departure, economic growth, a growing middle class and increasing spending power. These are countries with a very high proportion of children and youth in the population. The alcohol industry is adapting its strategy accordingly. It is aiming at young people and trying to promote its products and logos with modern,Western, future-oriented, high-technology associations. TheYoung and Promising provides some snapshots collected from three different countries, India, Sri Lanka and Malawi, by Norwegian journalist Ingvar Midthun.Current developments in these and other developing countries may have dramatic consequences for health and welfare among the world's poor in the course of just a few years.

Flying high
Kingfisher may be alone in flying so high that they literally started their own airline, but this marketing strategy is common to many: targeting young people and linking drinks and logos to modern, Western, forward-looking, high technology themes. People who drink are supposed to belong to the élite – the jet-set lifestyle acquires a new meaning when beer and air travel are marketed under the same name. Perhaps India is the clearest example of what the alcohol industry calls ‘emerging markets’: countries where alcohol consumption is low but add on economic growth, a growing middle class, increasing purchasing power, and a high percentage of children and youth in the population.

In such countries the industry sees great potential for increased alcohol sales. However, such an increase will not take place unaided. It must be spurred on. Purchasing power must be steered towards alcohol. A massive focus on lifestyle marketing of global products is aimed at urging young consumers to put beer and spirits high on their lists of goods to be purchased. The result will surely be that the northern European culture of binge drinking will spread around the world.

The investments made by the alcohol industry are producing results. In India from 1998 to 2003 sales of spirits grew by an average of 12.2 per cent – doubling consumption in the course of 5 years! The increase in alcohol consumption in developing countries is characterized by three factors:

the growth of industrially produced beer and spirits – both in addition to and at the expense of traditional alcoholic beverages;

a dominant position for multinational companies;

heavy investment in marketing and advertising.

Industry temptation
These promising prospects regularly become too tempting for the alcohol industry. Often they cross far over the boundaries set out both in national legislation and in the industry's own self regulation. The rules they apply in the West are left behind, and their respect for the limitations inherent in cultural and religious traditions is not particularly impressive.

Some developing countries prohibit advertising for alcohol, but that is no obstacle. Where advertising is banned the industry markets the brand through other products – so-called ‘surrogate advertising’. Sponsorship of sporting events and cultural activities is another often-used method to get around national advertising bans. Product placement in major movies from Hollywood or Bollywood reaches out everywhere. These are probably more effective methods than advertisements and posters. One of the big multinationals has defined the company's new ‘mission’: to create lasting bonds with consumers by providing them with branded products and experiences that bring people together.

Jet-set life also has appeal in Malawi
Malawi in East Africa is one of the world's poorest nations with a large segment of poverty. The country is number 162 of 175 countries on the UNDP's index on living conditions. Current life expectancy is around 37 years. But they do have beer! The Danish brewery company Carlsberg set its sights on Malawi as early as the 1960s. Now the country is saturated with ‘green’ advertisements for Carlsberg beer.

In Malawi too the alcohol industry tempts potential customers with a taste of the jet-set life. Send in the cork inlay from the beer-bottle and take part in a draw to win a free flight around the world for seven days with seven friends. The contrast with life in rural areas and the daily struggle for survival could hardly be more striking.

With the permission of FORUT we publish from their report the editorial written by Professor Robin Room.

The flood of alcohol and the path of development

For Asia and Africa, as for Latin America and Oceania, economic and social development is the transcendent issue of our time. Some parts of the developing world are doing well; others are lagging behind. If we look at the history of countries that are now economically developed,we can see that alcohol played a double role in development. On the one hand, industrialization of production and commercialization of the supply of alcoholic drinks was often an early stage of economic development. On the other hand, the flood of alcohol which resulted created enormous social and health problems, and became an impediment also to further development. The new industrial and urban conditions required more, not less, sobriety. In many countries, social movements for alcohol control became the most important and long lasting popular movements. It took over a century of political struggle in such countries as the United States and Norway to reach a settlement on this issue, however unstable.

In some respects, we can see early stages of this history being repeated today in many developing countries, and particularly in those doing better economically. In most places, industrialization and commercialization of the alcohol supply is well under way. Alcohol consumption is increasing rapidly in the better-off parts of the developing world. Along with this comes increased harm. The World Health Assembly summed it up in a 2005 resolution: “harmful drinking is among the foremost underlying causes of disease, injury, violence – especially domestic violence against women and children – disability, social problems and premature deaths, is associated with mental ill-health, has a serious impact on human welfare affecting individuals, families, communities and society as a whole, and contributes to social and health inequalities. ”As happened historically in the developed world, in some places there have been popular movements to control the alcohol supply and limit the problems from drinking – some examples are the women’s campaigns in India, on the Pacific Island of Chuuk, and in South Africa under apartheid, and community movements in the highland Chiapas of Mexico.

But there are new elements in the current version of the story. Most notably, as illustrated in the pages which follow, industrialization and marketing of alcohol these days is often not a matter of homegrown entrepreneurs, but of multinational corporations. The corporations’ expertise in industrial production is often parachuted in. Their heavy investment in advertising and other promotions also depends for its power on applying techniques learned elsewhere to new markets. On the other hand, much of the profit, as the industry is increasingly concentrated into the hands of multinationals, flows out of the economy of the developing country. The influence of the multinational enterprises, often exerted through the governments of developed countries in trade agreements and disputes, counteracts attempts by communities and governments to limit the damage by controlling alcohol sales. These days, the balance is tipped further to the negative side: in net terms, alcohol is more of an obstacle than it used to be to development.

As the case studies which follow illustrate, much can be done by communities acting at a local level to counter alcohol-related harms. But, given the internationalization of the alcohol industry and market, communities need help at the international level in this effort. This includes international cooperation in such matters as controlling the movement of alcoholic beverages across borders. Most importantly, it involves establishing the principle that alcohol is not an ordinary commodity like rice or clothing, because drinking carries with it such enormous social and health harms. National governments and local communities need to be able to act to control the market and counter the harms without constraint from international trade agreements or from pressure by powerful countries or trade blocs. As for tobacco, there is a need for these principles to be established by an international Convention.

Robin Room, University of Melbourne and Stockholm University

The Promise of Youth can be ordered from FORUT,Campaign for Development and Solidarity,
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