By Edu Abade
Big Alcohol Industry has been indicted and criticized for prioritizing its image and profits over public health and accountability with a view to ensuring market dominance through its ‘dubious five’ tactics of deception, manipulation, political interference, promotions and sabotage on a global scale.
In a report titled: Big Alcohol Exposed Annual Report 2024, the Movendi International and RESET Alcohol Initiative explained that these strategies became increasingly sophisticated and pervasive, with the alcohol industry leveraging them to deflect criticism, shape public opinion, determine what people think about their products, insisting that the industry also ensures that it causes maximum harm to policy solutions and obstruct evidence-based alcohol policy initiatives.
The report, which examined key examples of the dubious five strategies, exposed how Big Alcohol deployed misinformation, co-opted narratives and targeted lobbying to undermine and block health promotion initiatives.
From creating misleading health claims to funding deceptive prevention
programmes, the alcohol industry’s efforts reveal a relentless prioritization of profit over people’s health and community wellbeing.
The report also revealed how Big Alcohol deploys economic claims to obstruct and derail alcohol policy initiatives. For example, in Uganda, the alcohol industry managed to destroy the Alcoholic Drinks
Control Bill by promoting questionable claims that it would lead to job losses.
The Big Alcohol lobby framed their economic contributions as essential to the country’s prosperity, a misleading and false narrative that deflected attention from the devastating health, social and economic costs of alcohol harm.
“This case reflects a global trend in 2024: the alcohol industry systematically deploys claims economic influence, relentless lobbying, and misleading narratives to block lifesaving policies such as raising alcohol taxes, lower the presence of alcohol outlets in communities and protect people from alcohol advertising.
“From Sports to Screens-Exposing Big Alcohol’s Predatory Practices, serves as an exposé and a call to action. By documenting and exposing these harmful strategies and presenting real-world examples, the report provides a clear roadmap to counteract Big Alcohol’s influence and advance policies that save lives,” the report added.
As concrete evidence, the report offers documented case studies in Uganda, Brazil, Mexico, Germany and the United States, among other countries that demonstrate the scale of Big Alcohol’s political interference, while exposing patterns of alcohol industry behavior that transgresses borders and exposing a coordinated effort to normalize alcohol and block public health measures.
It stated that policymakers, advocates and communities now have the tools and evidence needed to identify and counter latest Big Alcohol narratives and implement effective solutions, adding that by documenting and exposing the industry’s activities, the report aims to expose the predatory practices behind the alcohol industry’s veneer of responsibility and highlight the urgent need for stronger safeguards against interference.
The report further clarified that in 2024, major alcohol industry strategies included the normalization of alcohol through sports sponsorships, misleading health claims, greenwashing environmental impacts, and leveraging non-alcoholic product lines to build loyalty with alcoholic brands.
“These tactics not only obscure alcohol’s inherent risks but also seek to embed the alcohol industry as an indispensable part of society. Big Alcohol continues to use economic power to pollute policy environments and discourses often creating dependency relationships that hinder governments from implementing effective alcohol solutions.
“This underscores the urgent need for action to protect health and wellbeing. Exposing, counteracting, and protecting public health is a wake-up call. By infiltrating trusted spaces “from sports to screens,” Big Alcohol has found increasingly sophisticated ways to target young people and other vulnerable groups, manipulate public perception, and derail health promotion initiative.
“This report exposes these predatory practices, equips advocates with evidence and calls on governments to act. It is time to challenge alcohol industry influence, reclaim public health priorities, and protect communities from the harm caused by the products and practices of the alcohol industry,” it concluded.
