It’s a tough time to be an alcohol marketer.
Between growing health concerns about the effects of alcohol and lower drinking rates, especially among younger generations, alcohol marketing is facing several existential threats at once.
“Ten years ago, a glass of red wine a day kept the doctor away. Now, the consensus is increasingly that any alcohol is harmful — it’s just a question of how bad,” says David Berkowitz, founder of the AI Marketers Guild and former Chief Marketing Officer at creative agency MRY.
The latest challenge to alcohol brands is a proposed Surgeon General’s warning label, like the kind found on tobacco packaging, warning about alcohol increasing the risk for cancer. If enacted, the label would inform consumers about alcohol’s link to various types of cancer, even for moderate drinking, and that could make it hard for beer, liquor and seltzer brands to move product.
Concerns about alcohol are reflected in consumer data collected by purchase platform Attain. Beer and liquor sales were down in January 2025 compared to the same month a year before, perhaps a reflection of the new Surgeon General guidance, which was delivered at the beginning of this year.
Products containing alcohol already carry a small warning about the risks associated with drinking while pregnant, but the disclaimer is usually tiny, on the back of the bottle and in the same color and font as the rest of the text on the packaging. A splashy, black and white warning, akin to those on packs of cigarettes, would be much more conspicuous and possibly more effective at deterring people from drinking.
“I would worry about being able to fully express the brand’s main consumer touch point, which is the bottle,” says Matt Heindl, group vice president of social content and engagement strategy at digital agency Razorfish. “In consumer packaged goods, the color, shape and logo of the package are of utmost importance. If suddenly brands cannot or do not want to use the bottle due to regulatory rulings mandating that a sticker be on the bottle at all times, it’s gonna throw a wrench into that.”
The closest analogue to the threat facing alcohol bans is the tobacco industry, which was once one of the most prominent spenders in advertising. But tobacco advertising was gradually phased out amid the growing research that linked smoking to lung cancer, emphysema and decreased cardiovascular health. Tobacco ads were banned from TV and radio in 1971, and billboard, product placement, sporting event and cartoon advertisements for tobacco products were banned in 1998. (R.I.P. Joe Cool, we hardly even knew thee.)
There hasn’t been a proposal to enact further limits on alcohol advertising, but the regulation of tobacco advertising was largely the product of a 1964 Surgeon General report on the health effects of smoking. Advertising bans on tobacco and public health campaigns about the downsides of smoking had their intended effect — the number of adult cigarette smokers fell 73 percent, from 42.6 percent of adults in 1965 to 11.6 percent in 2022.
With the current Surgeon General taking a hard look at the health effects of alcohol, there’s speculation alcohol could experience a similar trajectory. Drinking was on the decline even before the new guidance from the Surgeon General. The number of young adults (ages 18 to 34) who regularly drink fell 10 percentage points, from 72 percent to 62 percent, from 2003 to 2023.
Alcohol was long considered more or less harmless in small amounts, such as a couple of drinks after work. There was even a widely held belief that red wine is healthy because it is rich in antioxidants (which it is). But researchers, public health officials and wellness influencers have in recent years emphasized that there is no amount of alcohol intake that is healthy, and that the downsides — which range from disturbed sleep to inflammation to increased cancer risk — outweigh the potential benefits.
“The trend is great for society but for alcohol brands, no one wants to be the next Philip Morris. Drinking alcohol won’t go away, but it could be in decline for a while, at least until the next generation rebels against their sober parents.”
.png)
