ASA raps club for promoting excessive drinking

Complaints against a nightclub that offered a competition draw on its website encouraging “excessive consumption” plus two Facebook contests advertised to under 18s have been upheld, advertising watchdogs have ruled.

Glasgow nightclub’s advertisements encouraged “excessive drinking”, the ASA has ruled

Glasgow venue the Garage – owned by Beachcove and one of Scotland’s oldest nightclubs – advertised a trip to New York on its website as a prize in a draw that involved entrants purchasing a Smirnoff Gold or Applebite Gold from the bar.

It specified that for every Smirnoff Gold or Applebite Gold bought consumers would receive a gamecard for the draw, with customers allowed to enter as many times as they liked by buying more drinks and submitting more gamecards.

A complaint was made about two competition adverts on the Garage’s Facebook page that required fans to “like and share”, resulting in the advertising of alcohol to people under 18.

One advert was for a competition to win a “VIP Jagermeister night out”, while the second was for the prize of a VIP booth and a bottle of vodka, both found to breach the Committee of Advertising Practice code.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld the complaints, ruling the competition to win a trip to New York “encouraged participants to purchase, and consume, a number of drinks to improve their chances of winning”.

“We concluded the promotion therefore condoned and encouraged excessive consumption of alcohol,” said the ASA. “Because Beachcove had had the ability, through the selection of media and the context in which the ads appeared, to prevent the ads being directed at people under 18, but had failed to do so, we concluded the ads were in breach of the Code.”

Beachcove was ordered to remove the adverts and ensure they do not appear again in their current form.

The company argued the promotional poster for the trip to New York included the Drinkaware logo on the front, and therefore did not encourage excessive consumption of alcohol and that it had no control over shares on Facebook beyond those who liked the page.