ALCOHOLICS--AWAYS ALONE, EVEN IN A CROWD

All ads for hard alcohol--whiskeys, rum, vodka, etc.--are aimed at people who drink alcohol. That's obvious. But who are the best customers? People who drink the most, buy the most. Who are they? People who drink constantly: drunks and alcoholics.

So would we be surprised to discover hard liquor ads are specifically aimed at those best customers, the boozers?

Companies selling alcoholic products try to maintain the illusion that they would never, ever encourage anyone to become--or continue to be--that kind of problem drinker. In other words, we're supposed to believe that they don't want anyone to be a heavy consumer of a product they are trying to sell lots of. Oh, come on....

Many drunks and alcoholics are not social drinkers. They are solitary drinkers. You see them in every bar. Even in a crowd they are really alone. Look at the ad below.

Look at the blonde.Why does she have that look in her eyes?

The only thing there is the bottle of whiskey. Again, think of the little movie. To look out at us, she has to look out of the corner of her eyes. If she went back to looking straight ahead (to our right) what would she be looking at? You bet! Now compare her face on the left with the right, with her hair down. What does it show now?

She's on a boat with two other women and a guy. Compare her face to the others. What's her expression now? How involved is she in what's happening around her?

Did you notice that now the whisky bottle is directly over her head. Of course there's the rest of the movie, the whole social scene, the before and after, based on our understanding of three women and one man together. Or is it really two couples?

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