Alcohol is certainly in the spotlight at the moment and being held responsible for many social issues. An article in SMH was published today astounded me that there was such a widespread generalization by Australian Medical Association about alcohol marketing and advertising but the fuel in the debate continues to be ignited.
On 11 July the Australian Advertising Standards Bureau (a non governmental organization set up to evaluate complaints against advertisers and advertisers ) ruled that Smirnoff was responsible for comments and photographs uploaded on it’s facebook page by members of the facebook community. More details. A similar ruling followed about VB and there’s now a greater responsibility for brand owners to monitor and make sure content is relevant as there are legal ramifications.
I know many of the alcohol brands are being responsible about the way they market on facebook, but incase you were not aware of some of these features here’s just a couple of tips on how you can make sure you stay out of the spotlight.
1) Set your age restriction of your page to “Alcohol Related”
This is a setting that restricts the content on your page to the minimum drinking age in each country. So whilst you may have it at 18 or over to cover Australian laws, if someone from overseas is viewing your page with a different legal drinking age then you won’t be complying.
To change this setting this you need to be the Administrator of the page, go into the admin settings, go into Manage Permissions and then on the drop down box choose “Alcohol related”.
2) Target appropriately if you’re running ads
If you are running facebook ads then think about your targeting. Having more targeted age selections will not only help you optimize your campaign results, it will save you spending money on ads that are not targeted to your right consumer group.
3) Think about the content you’re posting.
Whilst a cartoon on your page may be funny and generate some additional likes, question what message it sends out to your audience. If you think that it could be interpreted as irresponsible and if there is a complaint, you could be liable.
4) Monitor Comments daily and respond promptly.
It’s now easier than ever to monitor comments on your brand facebook page. You can download Pages Manager app for free and see what’s happening or again in the settings of your page you can choose to receive email notifications or onsite notifications by going into your settings and choosing the appropriate level.
Like it or not the anti alcohol lobby is gaining steam and it’s up to us all to make sure we’re promoting our products responsibly.
Hope these tips are of some use. If you’ve got others your are doing that might be of use to others, please leave suggestions in the comments field below.
Cheers
Trish
