In just a few short weeks, an advocacy campaign spearheaded by local prevention coalitions like the Oregon Partnership and coordinated by groups like Join Together, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), and Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) succeeded in getting three of America's top retailers to stop selling a series of games that critics say promote binge and underage drinking.

In mid-December 2006, Kentucky Crime Prevention Coalition Director Bob Douglas learned that Kohl's department stores in the Cincinnati area were selling at least five different drinking games, including "Drinko," a version of the TV game show "Plinko," and games that combined drinking with ping-pong, roulette, and darts.

The Kentucky coalition began sending e-mails to Kohl's officials and also put in a call to the local media; the Kentucky Post ran a story on the controversy on Dec. 12, 2006.

Douglas also contacted George Hacker of CSPI's Alcohol Polices Project in Washington, D.C., and Hacker, in turn, sent out a national "action alert" urging advocates to contact Kohl's and ask the company to stop selling the drinking games. The action alert reached Eric Helmuth at Join Together, who offered to circulate the CSPI alert via Join Together's extensive e-mail list of addiction prevention and treatment leaders and organizations.

Many of the games targeted by the campaign, such as "Shots and Ladders" and "Beer Pong," are commercially-produced versions of drinking games already popular on college campuses and among high-school students, noted Helmuth, director of technology and online communications for Join Together. "For a manufacturer or retailer to claim that these boxed games are meant only to appeal to over-21 adults is simply disingenuous," he said.

Soon, both national groups like CADCA and local organizations like Oregon Partnership were adding their voices and resources to the campaign, including through a sample letter forwarded to advocates. "Intentionally or not, these youth-centered games promote underage and high-risk drinking," the Kohl's alert noted. "They have no place in a family department store, especially during the holiday season. Tell Kohl's president Kevin Mansell that binge drinking is no laughing matter. Insist he remove these irresponsible products from store shelves and online."

Letters Spark Swift Action

Within three days of Join Together sending out its first message about Kohl's on Dec. 19, the company wrote back to advocates promising to stop selling the games. "Be assured that the remaining games are being removed from all Kohl's stores and online," wrote Kohl's spokesperson Julie Landro. All in all, the campaign generated more than 2,800 letters to Kohl's, said Helmuth.

Attention then shifted to Target, another retailer selling drinking games online and in its retail stores. Again, events moved swiftly: a Join Together action alert generated more than 2,100 letters to Target (despite the campaign being launched the week before Christmas), and by Jan. 10 Target was writing to activists, "Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and feelings about the game 'Drinko.' This product isn't sold in Target stores and is no longer available on our web site at Target.com. We apologize for any offense or disappointment this product may have caused."

With two victories in hand, advocates turned to a third retailer found to be selling the games: Linens 'n Things. The campaign targeting this company was launched Jan. 10, the same day that USA Today published the first national newspaper story detailing the campaigns against the three retailers.

The next day -- and after receiving more than 1,600 letters from prevention advocates -- Linens 'n Things spokesperson Toni Vardiman responded, "Although these games are marketed to the adult population and are not meant to promote irresponsible drinking or consumption of alcohol; we appreciate your comments and are accordingly removing these items from our shelves and on our website."

On Jan. 12, Vardiman wrote to Join Together to add: "As of this morning, all stores have complied and the product is no longer available on the website. Thank you for creating such awareness and bringing this matter to our attention."

A 'Terrific Example'

"This is a terrific example of how responsive corporate America can be when confronted with the social consequences of their business practices," said CSPI's George Hacker. "It's a reflection of the large degree of ignorance and the blind spot that much of society has for alcohol issues, but when confronted with the pretty plain facts, and educated as they obviously were, [the companies] responded."

In fact, the successful campaign targeting drinking games sold by Kohl's, Target and Linens 'n Things was just the latest in a string of advocacy victories involving alcohol-related products and national retailers. For years, CSPI had criticized Abercrombie & Fitch for its alcohol-themed products, and in 2005 the company bowed to pressure and removed a series of drinking-related t-shirts marketed to teens and young adults. Also in 2005, J.C. Penney responded to criticism from the Marin Institute and community-based advocates by removing alcohol-branded t-shirts from its young men's department.

Community prevention advocates have even had recent success in influencing marketing by the alcohol industry itself, with groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving getting Anheuser-Busch to pull its "Bud Pong" game and halt sponsorships of "beer-pong" tournaments.

And last October, the Oregon Partnership -- in a campaign aided by a news story in the New York Times -- convinced Macy's to stop selling beer-related t-shirts in its back-to-school catalog.

Peter Schulberg, communications director for the Oregon Partnership, said his group was encouraged by the rapid success of the Macy's campaign and applied the lessons learned to the latest advocacy effort. Initially, he noted, the Partnership only asked for Macy's to pull the shirts from its back-to-school catalog, but the company's parent, Federated Department Stores, decided to stop selling the shirts altogether, removing them from both Macy's and Bloomingdales stores. "When that happened, we thought, 'Maybe this isn't as hard as we thought it would be,'" recalled Schulberg.

For prevention advocates nationally, the drinking-games campaign demonstrated that the union of grassroots activism, powerful Internet-based organizing tools, and effective media advocacy can bring about rapid changes. "We didn't have to go to court. It didn't take years; it happened really quickly," noted Schulberg, who said that while the letter-writing helped educate company officials about alcohol-related concerns, local and national media coverage in both the Macy's campaign and the campaign targeting Kohl's, Target and Linens 'n Things served as the "catalyst" for the retailers to take action.

"The rapid and overwhelming success of this campaign clearly demonstrates the power of online organizing around public-health issues," added Join Together's Helmuth. Join Together used state-of-the-art e-campaign tools from GetActive software to alert its nationwide mailing list of 30,000 about the campaign, and to send rapid progress updates to members who wrote letters.

The campaign also had important fringe benefits for the Boston-based program: "We added 2,100 new subscribers to our e-mail list directly from campaign participation, in less than 3 weeks – and almost all of them came from activists using the 'tell-a-friend' tools to spread the word to friends and colleagues," Helmuth noted.

The prevention community seems to be on a roll with these latest victories, and CSPI's Hacker suggests that changing public attitudes toward drinking point to the possibility of more wins in the future. Noting, for example, the rising interest in "social-host" laws across the U.S., Hacker said that, "People are much more sensitive to these issues today. The public tolerance for messages that counteract efforts to reduce alcohol-related harm has diminished."