The Italian Advertising Self-regulatory Organisation sanctions Hendrick's Gin for violating the rules for advertising alcoholic beverages

In ruling no. 32/2023 of September 19, 2023, the Italian advertising self-regulatory organisation (IAP) ordered Hendrick's Gin Distillery LTD and IGPDecaux s.p.a. to cease disseminating an advertising message regarding a gin, for violation of Article 22 of the Code of Advertising Self-Regulation, according to which the advertising of alcoholic beverages must be marked by canons of fairness, moderation and personal responsibility.

The subject of the dispute was a billboard, published from July 5 to July 18, 2023 at a Milan subway station, describing Hendrick's Gin as "unusually refreshing", with a background of a paradisiacal landscape and two cocktail glasses in a toasting position behind a waterfall. A warning to "drink the unusual responsibly" appeared, in smaller font, to the bottom of the billboard.

According to IAP, the addition of such wording was not sufficient to make the communication balanced, and therefore lawful, given the image of the waterfall behind two glasses, which was considered to encourage excessive consumption. The term "refreshing", then, was considered to further enhance consumers' desire to purchase the product, playing on the need for coolness that was evidently becoming more pressing at the time of the advertisement (summer). IAP also noted that although it is not forbidden to advertise alcoholic beverages in places accessible to minors (as is a subway station), the obligations of communicative care, in such contexts, are even more stringent, whilst care that was found to be entirely lacking in this particular case.

Summing up, IAP confirmed that the message under analysis, far from being an invitation to consume alcohol with correctness, moderation and personal responsibility, is instead a promotion that does not respect, as such, the limits provided for in Article 22 of the Code of Advertising Self-Regulation. Moreover, IAP points out, the fact that the promotional campaign had ceased at the time of the decision does not remove the need for IAP's jurisdiction, because of the interest of the advertising system in general in obtaining a ruling on the merits and to prevent an illicit campaign from being disseminated again in the future.