Sydney Morning Herald August 6, 2007
AN ALCOHOL industry insider has admitted companies deliberately target young people by sweetening ready-to-drink alcopops to mask the taste of alcohol and appeal to the \”younger palate\”. A marketing executive behind the vodka-based drink Absolut Cut said yesterday the market was booming for high-strength pre-mixed drinks that \”get young people drunk faster\”. Cheap, sugary drinks packaged in bright colours are the best way to start people drinking at an early age, said Mat Baxter, a partner in the media planning agency Naked Communications.\”It\’s a more effective and easier way to get drunk faster and that\’s a conclusion that we\’ve drawn from understanding the category dynamics,\” he said. \”It\’s one of the few drinks where you don\’t necessarily know you\’re drinking alcohol and that\’s a conscious effort to make those drinks more appealing to young people. [The] drinks are very much about masking the alcohol taste.\”Mr Baxter\’s views first emerged in the advertising journal B&T, in which he remarked on Absolut Cut – a ready-to-drink product, or RTD, with an alcohol content of 5.5 per cent – being taken off the market. He said it was a sign that the market for these drinks – described by some in the industry as the \”binge drinker\” category – was dominated by stronger, 7 per cent alcohol, drinks with appeal to young people on a budget.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/alcopops-lure-young-drinkers/2007/08/05/1186252546948.html#