Forty-one percent of SABMiller's European customers say they noticed presence of responsible drinking messages on company's packaging, commercial communications, company says

Nevin Barich

LONDON , April 18, 2012 (press release) – For the first time SABMiller Europe has undertaken an independent, transparent monitoring exercise in which it assesses the compliance of SABMiller with its commitments to place RDMs on packaging and in commercial communications.

The report reveals high levels of compliance for both strands - advertising and packaging. The findings show that each advertising campaign (new and re-runs) run for SABMiller products between July 2011 and January 2012 reached overall RDMs compliance rate of 98%. Further, out of 830 products within the scope of SABMiller's commitment, 610 products carried the SABMiller RDMs, and 199 products carried the industry-designed RDMs, thus setting the overall compliance rate of 97.47%. Finally, 41% of respondents claimed that they noticed the presence of RDMs and could spontaneously recall at least one of the messages displayed. The percentage of prompted awareness of RDM messages was much higher. In most countries above 73% of respondents responded affirmatively when asked if they had already heard or seen the RDM messages.

The monitoring activity demonstrates the company's strong commitment to delivering meaningful consumer information on alcohol consumption. It also reaffirms SABMiller's pledge to regularly take the pulse of consumers' expectations and policy makers' priorities to participate in finding new means to curb alcohol abuse.

The monitoring exercise revealed some shortcomings in the roll out of the messages. Some of the messages were not contrasting enough in print marketing materials and SABMiller is working to work to further clarify the instructions on how to apply the commitment in print media.

The review of the compliance was carried out in the second half of 2011 by independent third parties (Ebiquity and KPMG) in a sample selection of SABMiller's most important European markets: Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain (Canary Islands), and the United Kingdom. The report followed SABMiller's voluntary commitment to the EU Alcohol and Health Forum to develop RDMs targeted at three key areas: underage drinking, pregnant women and drink-driving.

SABMiller as a founding member of the European Alcohol and Health Forum has made a number of commitments on responsible drinking and advertising. In addition discouraging irresponsible drinking is the first of SABMiller's Sustainable Development priorities.

Commenting on the report Alan Clark, Managing Director Europe, SABMiller stated:

"At SABMiller, we want our consumers to enjoy our products responsibly. Beer is a low alcohol beverage, created to be nurtured and savoured and not to be abused.

We work actively across all our markets, often with health experts, NGOs and law enforcement agencies, to promote responsible drinking and combat alcohol abuse.

Placing messages on our products and marketing communication has become standard business practice for us and we are pleased to reach millions of consumers, reminding them that our beer is not for minors under the legal age, drivers or pregnant women.

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