Google Lightens its Restrictions on Alcohol Advertising

Cleared2Drive is so very sorry to hear that Google has lightened its restrictions on the search engine marketing of alcohol products, revising their AdWords advertising policy for the first time in nearly two years.

As reported by Web Pro News, in 2008 Google allowed PPC ads promoting beer, champagne and wine products to run in its sponsored search results for the first time. Several months later it updated the policy once more to allow the promotion of spirit and liqueur brands, though direct retail promotions were still restricted – effectively, hard alcohol advertisers were limited to promoting websites with information about their brand, their products or related goods.

Now Google has relaxed their policy even further. Writing on the Inside Adwords blog, Dan Friedman of Google has announced that advertisers will now be able to use AdWords to “promote websites that sell hard alcohol online, direct users to retailers where their products are sold, or feature sales promotion.” “We’re constantly evaluating our advertising policies to ensure that they continue to be effective, and we made the decision to change our policy on alcohol to help more advertisers use AdWords for the promotion of their products,” he said.

There are several criteria for hard alcohol advertising on AdWords, which advertisers must comply with or face censure from the company:

• Adverts must not be targeted at minors; not imply that consumption of alcohol can improve sexual, social or professional standing;
• Not imply that drinking alcohol is relaxing or therapeutic;
• Not imply that excessive consumption of alcohol is a positive activity;
• Not contain sexual content;
• Not include endorsements from any icons/people appealing to minors, including cartoon characters and athletes;
• Feature a landing page with both an age verification gate and statements about responsible drinking.

While all this criteria setting makes for a good attempt at restricting youth, we all know that anything like this on the internet is going to make alcohol more appealing to our teens and young adults.  Every parent needs to be aware of Google’s change in policy and take precautionary measures to make sure their child doesn’t drive drunk or impaired.  For more information about how to take a pro-active measure to protect your child against impaired driving got to Cleared2Drive.com.