The "Dont be a slapper" add

I think the most important message in the ad is that grey school uniforms make girls look about 2 stone heavier. STAMP THEM OUT!

I saw said advert about an hour ago.

(Classic with the Nico btw )

I thought she looked very bloody young actually. Who is the target here? Whats the point of the ad? To make drunk girls embarresed about getting drunk?

I believe the last one was the guy in the bar a la "Being John Malkovich" with 50 of him around himself - and all of them causing hassell. "Don't see a great night wasted" was the message.

I think it's absolute crap - all of it to be honest. To think that these ads would have an effect. They are on telly, because they have to be. The budget has to be spend, and it is being spent on this crap.

Seeing drunk enbarressed people will not stop people getting drunk. When you go out to get drunk - you see lots of people doing stupid drunk things. Apart from fighting and agro - someone getting sh*tfaced and falling over will not stop them from drinking again.

In answer, I suspect it's a follow up to the last ad. The guy in the last ad was nid to late 20's. The girl in this ad is mid to late teens. Interesting choice to highlight the problem agegroup. I don't see why they should single out schoolgirls. They shouldn't be in the pubs, and if perhaps the age limit law was implemented, there might be some success.

Stupid useless ad - won't have the desired effect for the money invested in it.

Hi GreeBo,

It's a cultural problem. I believe the answer is largly a full cross the board alcohol advertising ban.

Take smoking. The only reason that the oppertunity to ban it arose, is because smoking harms the evolution of the human race. It kills us - and now we all know that.

With drinking, it is dressed up as the social lubricant - and this is done through the adverts. Branding - and guys swimming 300 miles for a pint of Guinness. But remember "Drink Sensibly". Diagio are the devil !!!

With so much advertising in place, and no apparent reason to ban it, the culture will continue.
As long as Tony O'Reilly is getting money from Heinekin and Diagio etc., he's happy. As long as he's happy, Bertie's happy. RTE are also happy, because unlike BBC, they have ads, and the Director General out there benifits from the advert revenue too. None of them really want to see it go anywhere, because there is too much money being made off of it. TV3, are of course the same, only they like O'Reilly are private.

So now, ask these guys to speak out against drinking - ask them to put an advert with a family breaking up, a wife beating her husband with an iron, and they will run a mile. Not only would it upset us, but it would be bad for the TV/ Media outlets advertisers not only from the drink sector, but anybody advertising around that advert too - because people would be in no mood for buying - just for reflection.

Advertising is the devil. We have been programmed since birth to believe that drinking is the thing that we want to do once we hit 18. So keen are most of us, that we start earlier - at 13/14/15. I remember not even knowing why I wanted to drink, I just did. Isn't that strange??

Ban the advertising and that would go a long way to reducing the problem.
Unfortunately, there is politically no reason to ban alcohol adverts.

After all, the politicians will just say it's the people who can't control them selves, not the drink manufacturers faults.

Conspiracy wrote:

Hi GreeBo,

It's a cultural problem. I believe the answer is largly a full cross the board alcohol advertising ban.

Take smoking. The only reason that the oppertunity to ban it arose, is because smoking harms the evolution of the human race. It kills us - and now we all know that.

With drinking, it is dressed up as the social lubricant - and this is done through the adverts. Branding - and guys swimming 300 miles for a pint of Guinness. But remember "Drink Sensibly". Diagio are the devil !!!

With so much advertising in place, and no apparent reason to ban it, the culture will continue.
As long as Tony O'Reilly is getting money from Heinekin and Diagio etc., he's happy. As long as he's happy, Bertie's happy. RTE are also happy, because unlike BBC, they have ads, and the Director General out there benifits from the advert revenue too. None of them really want to see it go anywhere, because there is too much money being made off of it. TV3, are of course the same, only they like O'Reilly are private.

So now, ask these guys to speak out against drinking - ask them to put an advert with a family breaking up, a wife beating her husband with an iron, and they will run a mile. Not only would it upset us, but it would be bad for the TV/ Media outlets advertisers not only from the drink sector, but anybody advertising around that advert too - because people would be in no mood for buying - just for reflection.

Advertising is the devil. We have been programmed since birth to believe that drinking is the thing that we want to do once we hit 18. So keen are most of us, that we start earlier - at 13/14/15. I remember not even knowing why I wanted to drink, I just did. Isn't that strange??

Ban the advertising and that would go a long way to reducing the problem.
Unfortunately, there is politically no reason to ban alcohol adverts.

After all, the politicians will just say it's the people who can't control them selves, not the drink manufacturers faults.

An intelligently put, if slightly naieve responce. After all, Ireland had a reputation for drinking and fighting long before television or radio advertising was invented.

I also think its wrong to blame the fact that we accept drinking as the problem, alcohol is consumed the world over. Rather, its that we accept drinking in excess. There is not yet enough done to prosecute pubs that allow people to leave sh*t-faced, and nowhere enough being done to educate young people about drinking responsibly. The best way to make the problem worse is to hide it, so incentives like this are a way forward. However, along its worthless, its needs to be backed up repeatedly until its finally pounded into the consciousness of some generation that going out on a weekend to simply get ratarsed isn't the way to go.

doodle_sketch wrote:

I think the point was to try to make people think about what they must look like when they are drunk. Given that people are so willing to cast judgement without comparison to their own actions, I think its a worthy point.

I don't think there are many people who don't know how it looks to be falling over drunk. If they themselves go drinking certainly in Dublin, they know what it looks like.

doodle_sketch wrote:

I don't believe they were singling out any demographic apart from underage drinkers here. And why is it really so interesting a choice of age group, having worked in a pub I can tell you that this is exactly the age group that the problem majoratively exists within. You're not going to find many under 16 year olds out drinking, but after that general age...

To think that they just randomly picked a young girl is incorrect. I would be scared to see the budget of making that advert. The girl was picked on purpose - that is a certainty. You say you have worked in a pub. Have you worked in many pubs? My friends are all around 30, and I assure you, I've been at anough parties and pub gatherings to know that your statement is completely false.

Conspiracy wrote:

The girl was picked on purpose - that is a certainty.

and next week there'll probably be another ad aimed at underage males.
isnt the whole point of these ads to raise awareness of underage, and not just binge, drinking??

doodle_sketch wrote:

An intelligently put, if slightly naieve responce.

Why naieve? I'm curious about that. Bear in mind - I'm not a big drinker. I drink once a month at most.

doodle_sketch wrote:

After all, Ireland had a reputation for drinking and fighting long before television or radio advertising was invented.

Not true - not on the scale that drinking is now. Ireland didn't have the money to drink like we do now. Especially not a the young age we all start at. Advertising has been around for years - it just wasnt as clever as it is now, nor was it as ubiquitous. [/QUOTE]

doodle_sketch wrote:

I also think its wrong to blame the fact that we accept drinking as the problem, alcohol is consumed the world over. Rather, its that we accept drinking in excess.

That is very true. My european friends will say that drinking is getting bigger everywhere, not just in Ireland, but...all that my friends hear in work on a Monday morning is discussions about how nasty a hangover was and my hangover was worse than yours type comments.

doodle_sketch wrote:

There is not yet enough done to prosecute pubs that allow people to leave sh*t-faced, and nowhere enough being done to educate young people about drinking responsibly.

That is my point. There is too much being done to make drinking acceptable, and not 1% of that done to counteract it. That's why I think the advertising is the problem.

doodle_sketch wrote:

The best way to make the problem worse is to hide it, so incentives like this are a way forward. However, along its worthless, its needs to be backed up repeatedly until its finally pounded into the consciousness of some generation that going out on a weekend to simply get ratarsed isn't the way to go.

Again, it is not in the interests of the government to spend huge amounts on counteracting an industry that contributes to the national income as much as the drink industry does in this country.

I suggest that you read Noam Chumsky's Manufacturing Consent.
Also, investigate "Edward L. Bernays " - the "Father of Spin".
A true helper of Satan as the late great Bill Hicks would have said.

We as a race take advertising for granted, and think perhaps that it is avoidable. It is not.

Bernay's idea was to make people want things they didn't want.
To control the public, without them knowing they were being controlled.

Advertising is the main key. Without the ads, we wouldn't want any of it.

Look at any alcohol advertisement. Look at the image it portrays.
Match that up with how you feel after 4 or 5 pints.
Not the same. I'm not swimming to new york, and I'm not flying around the pub airspace sucking on zero gravity bailies bubbles. We are being fooled.

Why do we get absolutely hammered? Because it's an escape, and the escape that we are allowed by the powers that be has that effect when you overindulge on it - unlike other intoxicating illegal substitutes. You want to let your self go and get intoxicated, that's the only legal option, and thats where you go because so does every body else because we are programmed that way !!!!

Conspiracy wrote:

To think that they just randomly picked a young girl is incorrect. I would be scared to see the budget of making that advert. The girl was picked on purpose - that is a certainty.

I never said it was random, I know how the media works better than to assume that. And while yes this is a greater drinking problem amongst young women, there is also a signifigant problem with men, so to assume that the ad was only aimed at women is also incorrect.

Conspiracy wrote:

You say you have worked in a pub. Have you worked in many pubs? My friends are all around 30, and I assure you, I've been at anough parties and pub gatherings to know that your statement is completely false.

4 or 5 pubs, actually, including a number that were primarily tourist and party orientated. I have seen the most of what can be magined, cleaned up the messes, etc.
And I still go out and drink. And I don't do it to excess unless its an occasion, i.e. birthday, though there was a couple of months when "real life" was taking too much of a toll and I made a bit of a turn towards it. To say that I have experienced the worst of it first hand would be an exaggeration, though I have seen it, both in friends and in customers.

Conspiracy wrote:

Why naieve? I'm curious about that. Bear in mind - I'm not a big drinker. I drink once a month at most.

It just seemed to me that you were willing to point the blame at one single cause and not acknowledge that there are other factors in this. A problem is rarely made up of one big element, its a whole lot of little ones. Advertising is one of these, admitedly, but its not the be all, end all of the issue.

Conspiracy wrote:

Not true - not on the scale that drinking is now. Ireland didn't have the money to drink like we do now. Especially not a the young age we all start at. Advertising has been around for years - it just wasnt as clever as it is now, nor was it as ubiquitous.

Enough to earn a reputuation that has become a tainting stereotype. And its getting worse. There are people who see topping these "league tables" as something to be taken as a source of pride, I've heard them. Its a minority, but its present.

Conspiracy wrote:

That is very true. My european friends will say that drinking is getting bigger everywhere, not just in Ireland, but...all that my friends hear in work on a Monday morning is discussions about how nasty a hangover was and my hangover was worse than yours type comments.

This is some of the scariest reading I have come across on the topic. That it has come so far that people are recommending ways to hide it, and from experience, suggests that there is a very serious problem that has yet to really come to the fore.

Conspiracy wrote:

I suggest that you read Noam Chumsky's Manufacturing Consent.
Also, investigate "Edward L. Bernays " - the "Father of Spin".
A true helper of Satan as the late great Bill Hicks would have said.

I might just take you up on that, though with my current workload, it might take some time to get around to it.

Conspiracy wrote:

Why do we get absolutely hammered? Because it's an escape, and the escape that we are allowed by the powers that be has that effect when you overindulge on it - unlike other intoxicating illegal substitutes. You want to let your self go and get intoxicated, that's the only legal option, and thats where you go because so does every body else because we are programmed that way !!!!

There are other forms of escape that aren't advertised and that aren't legal, and we know that there is as big a problem (discounting numbers) amongst our youth. To attribute everything to the power of advertising and nothing to the individual will is incorrect.

I think it's a good add to be honest...

"Im particularly interested in female reactions in particular as its causing murder with the better half of my house what with the "youll never get a husband that way" attitude"

this is the best bit about the add strangely enough, this is the message it is conveying to young women. "Be responsible with your drink, or no one will have you/take you seriously"
I don't think the scene would have worked half as well if it was about a 24 year old female office worker getting mash faced at the christmas do in front of her bosses, although I might be wrong. (thinking)
It did play on the fact that ultimately, a womans goal in life is to be decent enough to be considered "attractive", "desireable" to the opposite sex. But this is what a 15 year old female's priorities are....and thats why they targeted that aspect.

I thought the girl handled her drunkeness quite well. She got to a toilet before she threw up - who can boast of always managing to do that? As others said, I got that "you'll never get a husband" vibe off the ad too - that was the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw it. My feminist advice to the girl would be to tell the guy to go f**k himself and tell him that she wouln't sleep with such a judgemental square if he were the last male mammal left on earth.

I'm sick of these public health ads that tell people to do the "right" thing not because it's good in itself but because other people will mock them if they don't (see TV license ads) - we're not all sheep, we don't all live in constant fear of the neighbours' opinions of us. Please take note, o marketing staff of government depts.

So, this ad didn't have quite the intended effect on me but then again, I'm not part of the intended demographic.

It reminded me of the video for Smack My B!tch Up...

It seems like it should be effective, but similiar ads have shown that this type of thing really doesn't change young people's attitudes towards drinking, and I don't think this one has anything special that will make people instantly put down their drink and go
"Wait, if I do this I might end up a mess and people won't like me"