egta’s position papers and official documents
As part of its European public affairs and advocacy mission, egta issues official position papers on matters most important for television and radio advertising sales houses, including the debate on alcohol advertising and marketing. These papers represent egta’s position as endorsed by the association's decision-bodies. In any case, they do not engage individual members but the association as a whole, which is comprised of more than 100 sales houses across Europe and beyond.
Should you wish any additional information on any of these positions, or should you know more about a specific issue listed below or not, please, do not hesitate to contact the egta office (please click here to access egta’s contacts details).
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egta’s participation to the EU Alcohol and Health Forum from May 2007 to date |
Following a unanimous decision taken at its 2007 General Assembly, egta sent its formal application to participate to the EU Alcohol and Health Forum as a founding member and signed its Charter on June 7th. This involvement as a founding member illustrates egta’s commitment to engage in concrete actions to promote responsibility in commercial communications of alcoholic beverages. As a matter of fact, this commitment from egta goes well beyond the sole issue of advertising for alcoholic beverages and we strive to apply these principles to all advertising carried out on television and radio. Click here to read egta’s formal application to the Forum from May 2007.
egta’s engagement in the Forum resulted in the finalisation, in April 2009, of a mapping exercise of all existing limitations on TV and radio broadcast of advertising for alcoholic beverages, whether of a legislative or non-legislative nature (please click here for the press release). Compiling all information about both the regulatory and the self-regulatory frameworks in place in 22 member States, egta’s compendium has the objective of providing advertising professionals with a benchmarking tool and, in turn, of facilitating the exchange of best practices across Europe in the area of responsible advertising. The first version of egta’s Compendium was revised in March 2011 to take note of the changes that might have occurred following the transposition of the Audiovisual Media Service Directive across member States and of further developments in alcohol advertising self-regulation. Click here to access egta’s Compendium updated as of March 2011.
Following the finalisation of its first commitment, at its European Affairs Working Group meeting of 3 December 2009, egta’s members agreed to keep engaging in additional resources to respond to harmful alcohol drinking in Europe by step up their efforts to improve advertising self-regulation operations across Europe. In December 2009 egta committed to develop a dedicated online platform with the aim of providing in one year’s time broadcast advertising professionals with a facilitated access to a comprehensive set of resources around responsible commercial communication. The rationale for egta’s commitment is that a dedicated website, connected with similar on-line tools developed from other stakeholders, can work as an effective platform for the exchange of best practices across Europe in the area of responsible advertising and, in turn, can provide general guidance on potential safeguards applicable to other forms of marketing communications. Please click here to access egta’s submission form of its December 2009 committment.
In March 2011 egta’s complied with its second commitment to the EU Alcohol and Health Forum by making this website live. Please click here to see egta’s press release of March 2011.
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November 2010 – egta’s position on the draft own-initiative Parliamentary Report on the “Impact of Advertising on Consumer Behaviour” |
In the debate on a European Parliament own initiative Report on the “Impact of Advertising on Consumer Behaviour”, an amendment was tabled asking for a 9 pm watershed ban to alcohol advertising on all media (including television and radio). In view of the significant economic impact that this provision would have had on the European audiovisual industry (revenues from this sector represent an average of 6% of the turnover of European sales houses) egta sent a letter to relevant MEPs. The letter includes a set of arguments demonstrating the ineffectiveness of the provision to respond to the desired objectives. Click here to read egta’s position on the own-initiative Parliamentary Report of November 2010.
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October 2008 - egta’s contribution to the World Health Organisation’s consultation on its “Strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol” |
This paper is in response to the World Health Organisation’s 2008 Report by the Secretariat on “Strategies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol consumption”. egta specifically focuses on two strategies of the report deemed to reduce the harmful aspect of alcohol consumption: the protection of adolescents and young people on broadcast media and further advertising regulation and the issues of advertising content, control, placement and partial bans. Overall egta notes that numerous safeguards already exist to prevent television advertising of alcoholic beverages from neither specifically targeting nor being made in such a way as to be specifically appealing to minors. Therefore, further restrictions on the placement or volume of television advertising for alcoholic beverages would, in egta’s view, be disproportionate and would fail to meet any public health objective. Click here to read egta’s position paper.
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May 2007 - egta’s response to the draft parliamentary resolution "Strategy on reducing alcohol related harm in Europe" |
In view of the debate on a European Parliament Resolution “Strategy on reducing alcohol related harm in Europe”, egta sent this position paper to relevant MEPs asking the European Parliament to follow the Commission’s approach of its October 2006 Strategy which goes beyond a simplistic treatment of advertising and recognises that there are already a comprehensive set of limitations on broadcast advertising for alcoholic beverages. Click here to read egta’s position on the draft EP Resolution of May 2007.
March 2003 - egta's position and industry commitments on advertising for alcoholic beverages. Click here to read the document.
egta’s analysis & documents
In this section you can find a collection of useful documents that have been compiled by egta to help demonstrating the ineffectiveness of further ad restrictions on broadcast media to respond to the increase in harmful drinking and the loss that such restrictions would represent for TV and radio sales houses.
This section is fed by the public and regulatory affairs team at egta and updated on a regular basis.
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January 2010 - Q&A’s document on Commercial communications (click here) |
This document fed into a meeting egta and other media associations had with representatives from DG INFSO of the European Commission to raise their awareness on the industry concerns regarding the World Health Organisation initiative related to alcohol advertising in the framework of its Alcohol Strategy. As a follow up to the meeting, a common advertising industry document was sent to the Commission explaining the arguments against further restrictions on alcohol advertising.
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April 2011 - TV adpsend for alcoholic beverages in Europe (click here) |
This document shows the adpsend for alcoholic beverages in the EU in 2009 and is based on figures from egta’s c/000 database. Please note that figures from 2001-2009 are available to members in the database on regulatory frameworks applicable to TV advertising for alcoholic beverages in place across the EU (click here to access the database).
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May 2011 - TV ad restrictions and trends in alcohol consumption: some European case studies (click here) |
This document gives a quick glimpse into the restrictions on the advertising, sponsorship or brand identification of alcoholic beverages in France, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway and Poland. The document also explains how restrictions applied to TV advertising in these countries have not resulted in a decrease in alcohol consumption.
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egta figures on TV advertising investments coming from the alcohol industry (click here) |
The figures in this document give an overview of the proportion of TV advertising investments coming from the alcohol industry. In particular: the weight represented by the alcohol sector in the traditional advertising market in 2005 and 2006. The document demonstrates how advertising is one of the primary sources of investment in audiovisual content and is key in guaranteeing citizens’ free access to a variety of television programmes.
