MillerCoors Was Very Naughty This Year
Coors Light sponsored "Running of the Santas" bar tours in several cities this month. Billed as the "world's naughtiest pub crawl," the events were promoted on Facebook and MySpace. The event website is splashed with images of Santa, hawks an official Santa suit for the pub crawl, and features a video of people in Santa costumes running through the streets, partying.
But the beer industry's own voluntary advertising and marketing code explicitly bans the depiction of Santa Claus in beer marketing materials. And though the events were aimed at adults, many of them started in daylight or early evening hours, when children may well spot St. Nick dashing through the snow....getting drunk.
"These tacky promotional events once again raise the question of whether the beer industry's voluntary marketing and advertising code is worth the paper it's printed on," says George Hacker at the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). "How realistic is it to let the beer industry's lobbyists write and enforce the rules if not even Santa is safe? Besides, everyone knows Santa prefers milk -- skim, actually."
In response to public pressure from CSPI, Join Together and thousands of concerned citizens, MillerCoors has now acknowledged that using Santa to promote these events crossed the line. That's good news, but let's make sure they keep hearing our message so they won't be tempted to make the same mistake next year:
File a complaint with the Beer Institute and the FTC
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