Need for Public Health Policies in Response. A Global Alcohol Industry

A Global Alcohol Industry. As with tobacco, the ownership of alcohol production and the marketing of international and local brands of alcohol is now global business. Alcohol companies that grew in Western Europe and North America through mergers and acquisitions have now gone global. The global consolida­tion of industry ownership has implications for the public health response to alcohol-related harm.

These include the sheer power of these companies, sometimes referred to as transgovernmental corporations (Bendell and Kearins, 2005), to indicate their capacity to act outside national boundaries and constraints. In turn, this capacity allows these corporations to influence international trade agree­ments, to market their products aggressively to existing and potential consumers, and to engage at all levels with public and private debates on what alcohol control poli­cies are appropriate.

With regard to trade agreements, the alcohol industry has been an active supporter of the liberalization that has both assisted the expansion of the global companies and also challenged effective public health policies at the national level. Alcohol and tobacco have been the subjects of many challenges and not only countries’ ability to restrict imports but also their ability to restrict marketing have been reduced as a consequence of the trade agree­ments (Gould, 2005).

The size and nature of the industry’s marketing activity is another spin-off of the globalized industry.

The profits available to these corporations and their sophistication as marketers has allowed for effective marketing in mature markets such as Europe and North America, where alco­hol companies target products to the cohort of predrin­kers (who must be recruited on an ongoing basis to maintain profits), and also to younger cohorts, women, and ethnic groups with below-average patterns of con­sumption.

By 2001, the Council of the European Union noted a disturbing growth in alcohol consumption among children and adolescents. In Western Europe, marketing contributed to shifts away from wine consumption as part of meals toward a more fiesta or intoxication-focused pattern of beer drinking (Gual and Colom, 1997).

Of considerable global public health importance is the use of brand marketing of international alcohol products, and newly acquired local ones, to extend alcohol sales in new markets. The global corporations’ primary focus is to reach beyond the mature markets of their country and region of origin to seek emerging markets in other regions: Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

Tar­geted countries are those with developing economies, growing middle classes, high proportions of young people, and relatively low levels of alcohol consumption, suggest­ing considerable potential for growth. The rapid increases in consumption of branded products in these emerging markets suggests that the industry’s aim of targeted pro­motion is proving successful.

Also of public health concern is the role and resource of alcohol companies in influencing national alcohol con­trol policies. The largest global companies fund the Inter­national Center for Alcohol Policy (ICAP) in Washington, which is engaged in an active program of publication, communication, and lobbying. ICAP has surveyed Health Ministers and other officials developing alcohol policy in countries around the world to identify priority areas for policy development. Its website provides a ‘‘comprehen­sive guide to key issues in alcohol policy development,’’ and its reports are translated into languages widely used in several emerging markets.

The Center has released publications that serve to counter public health research by recommending policies that are relatively ineffective or less likely to affect sales (International Center for Alcohol Policies, 2002, 2003, 2004; Stimson et al., 2007). It also advocates a partnership approach between the alcohol industry, governments, and public health groups on alcohol policy and prevention. ICAP’s work is com­plemented by other, less-visible, global associations (such as the Global Alcohol Producers Group) and a growing number of regional and national social aspects organiza­tions, including a number in low- and middle-income countries (Benegal, 2005; Thamarangsi, 2006).