Downloads:

TV Safer than Film for Liquor Manufacturers

Product placement marketing in TV and Films is much more complicated for liquor manufacturers than it is for other brands, reports the Hollywood Reporter (via Reuters). Most recently, Budweiser has faced criticism from the Marin Institute, a prominent alcohol industry watchdog group, for its marketing in “Wedding Crashers.”

Class-action lawsuits in several states accuse spirits and beer manufacturers of marketing to underage youth through films. Coors, which came under fire for its tie-in with Miramax’s PG-13-rated “Scary Movie 3” in 2003, is named in some of the lawsuits along with Anheuser-Busch, Diageo, Bacardi USA, Brown-Forman, Miller Brewing Co. and Heineken USA, among others.

TV, for the most part, is a much less problematic platform than film because TV offers advertisers ratings and demographics data that give them a good idea of the makeup of the audience watching the program.

According to Nielsen’s product placement tracking service, 102 network shows featured alcoholic beverages this past season for a total of 9,426 seconds, or 2.6 hours. The network shows with the most alcohol placements this past season, including background shots, were “Eve” with 1,625, CBS’ “Still Standing” with 851; CBS’ “Two and a Half Men,” with 727, Fox’s “That ‘70s Show” with 667 and WB Network’s “What I Like About You” with 645. Three of the five—“Eve,” “That ‘70s Show” and “What I Like About You”—tend to be popular with younger audiences.