Hot weather means beer makers not sweating ad ban

Last fall's virtual ban on alcoholic beverage advertising is pushing beer makers to become more creative with their outdoor summer promotional campaigns. "Beer sells best in the summer, so brewers are looking for ways to promote their products," said Gustaw Zaleski, the director of the Industry Chamber of Outdoor Advertising. To get around a law that forbids outdoor advertisements of non-alcoholic and regular beer, breweries are now appearing on billboards as sponsors of sports and cultural events. And the Żywiec Group, the No. 1 beer producer in the country, is optimistic that a billboard campaign by Żywiec Zdrój mineral-water, which alludes to the beer Żywiec, will boost its sales. As a result, some media companies are doing better than expected, despite previous fears that the law would erode their advertising sales. According to Expert Monitor, an advertising research agency, breweries poured zł. 103 million ($24.75 million) into TV, radio and press advertising from January to May - a 14.6% drop compared to the same period last year. Industry officials, however, said the decline was due to the sector-wide advertising slump and the weak financial performances of the breweries themselves rather than the restrictions on outdoor advertising. "We're spending the same amounts of money as we did before the ban; we just do it in a different way," said Paweł Kwiatkowski, the spokesman for Kompania Piwowarska (KP), the nation's No. 2 beer producer.

Of all Poland's breweries, KP and Grupa Żywiec have spent the most money on advertising during the first five months of 2002, with zł. 39.9 million ($10 million) and zł. 40.2 million ($10.5 million), respectively, according to Expert Monitor. Although the advertising ban hasn't dented total ad spending by beer makers, it has affected where breweries are putting their money. Since the law doesn't restrict beer advertising in print media, newspapers saw their beer ad sales climb to zł. 4.85 million ($1.21 million) during the January-May period compared to zł. 2.23 million ($558,000) during the same period in 2001, according to Expert Monitor. Similarly, magazines' ad revenue increased to zł. 9.98 million ($2.49 million) during the first five months of this year compared to zł. 1.67 million ($419,000) during the same period in 2001, raising their ad market share among TV, radio and print media to 9.69% from 1.39% in 2001. The radio industry's share of beer advertising remained small, while TV ad revenue fell to zł. 87.5 million ($21.9 million) from zł. 115.8 million ($29 million) last year since the law permits beer advertisements to air only after 11 p.m.

"There are so many beer spots after 11 p.m. that it damages their impact, so brewers will try to squeeze in their spots before (then)," KP's Kwiatkowski said, referring to a legal loophole that allows brief ad spots alluding to beer brands to air just before 11 p.m. Outdoor advertising firms have been the hardest hit, with brewers buying a mere zł. 3.56 million ($890,000) worth of ads in the January-May period - a sevenfold slump from the same period in 2001, according to Media Watch, an agency that monitors outdoor advertising. "Brewers don't have full freedom to advertise their products, so they aren't able to spend as much as they would like to," Zaleski said. Although the recent hot weather has produced several brewery-sponsored outdoor campaigns, Zaleski remained skeptical about the sector's fortunes. "I see no optimistic prospects because the law precludes a return to old spending figures (by breweries)," Zaleski said. Despite the restrictions, brewers continue to find fresh avenues to promote their brands, just as they did after previous laws had been introduced in the past. This time, however, authorities are voicing no objections. "From my standpoint, the new legislation has eliminated all that we saw on (the) streets and TV only a year ago," said Bogusław Prajsner, the deputy director of the Polish Agency for the Prevention of Alcohol-Related Problems (PARPA). "Nothing of what appears (on the streets and in the media) violates the legislation."