With more young people drinking earlier, alcohol advertisers are coming under increasing pressure to clean up their act. Bernice Harrison reports

The new advertising code could mean that the famous Budweiser frogs will have croaked their last. The code, which came into effect on April 1st, states that where alcohol advertising is concerned "treatments that are likely to appeal to minors should not be used".

That bald sentence should result in a ban on the frogs and all the other childish images used in alcohol advertising such as the playful mouse or the racing rabbits, which appear on billboards pushing Smirnoff vodka. However, the advertising industry, which devises the codes, has given itself an out. It continues: "Advertisements should not feature characters (real or fictitious), motifs, colours or styles that are likely to appeal particularly to minors in a way that would encourage them to drink". The get-out clause is in the last four words. It would be almost impossible to prove that hearing the playful frogs croak encouraged anyone to consume alcohol.

"Advertising is about brand awareness," says Pat Barry, director of Corporate Affairs at Guinness, who points out that there have been many international studies which show that alcohol advertising doesn't encourage people to drink or to abuse alcohol. The way the drinks industry sees it, there is a pool of people who would be consuming alcohol anyway, so what individual companies try to do is to win those drinkers over to their particular brands. One of the most successful new drink brands launched in Ireland was Smirnoff Ice. In the nine months following its €2 million advertising launch in February 2000, drinkers - mostly clubbers and superpub goers - had consumed 26 million bottles of the sweet, pre-mixed alcohol drink.

However, these are nervous times for alcohol advertisers. Advertising is a self-regulating industry but the EU Commission has signalled its view that it is not in the consumers' best interests to continue to allow advertisers to police themselves. Alcohol advertisers, in particular, fear that if the EU gets its foot in the door, alcohol advertising could eventually go the way of tobacco advertising.

SOME EU countries have come down hard on alcohol advertising. In France, there is a ban on any TV advertising of alcoholic drinks and on the transmission of, for example, sporting events, from countries allowing alcoholic-drinks sponsorship or advertising around the pitch or on players' shirts. The European advertising industry has challenged this legislation and it is currently under consideration by the European Court of Justice.

"The drinks industry here is very keen to get its house in order," says Pat Barry, who is also a spokesman for the Drinks Industry Group. "There have been slippages in the past but we are in talks with the Department of Health to look at strategies to curb alcohol abuse and are planning a funded service whereby alcohol ads can be vetted at the concept stage." A group is also being established to monitor the degree to which the industry is acting responsibly.

The advertising code, which is overseen by the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland, also contains other clauses prohibiting the glamorisation of alcohol and, among other things, says that anyone in a drinks ad should be - and should look - over 25. This jars with several drinks industry sponsorships which appeal to a much younger age group. Sport is the obvious one but there are others. Baileys, for example, sponsors Friends on RTE. The latest Neilsen viewing figures show that more than a quarter of its viewers are under 19 - that's a lot of brand-awareness among a group who are not old enough to order the drink in a bar. Indeed, although 4- to 24-year-olds make up 36 per cent of the total TV population, they constitute 47 per cent of the Friends' audience, indicating an under-24 year age bias.

It's these sort of conflicting messages from the marketers of alcohol that give ammunition to the industry's critics.

Meanwhile, the power of the new code and its interpretation will only be tested when, and if, members of the public make complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority - as it is not proactive in enforcing its own code.

At James's Gate, they don't feel that the frogs contravene the codes and are rolling out two new ads (one World Cup-oriented) in the next month. According to Barry: "Their humour is adult and they don't encourage anyone to drink."

To complain about adverts: complete the form at www.asai.ie or phone the Advertising Standards Authority at 01- 6608766