Summer Means Beer

To some people, at least. Beer at the baseball game, at the barbecue, with the hot dog or the bratwurst or the Italian sausage. Beer on a hot afternoon in the shade.

I'm not a big beer fan, but I am interested in advertising, and beer is one of the "you've made it" brands that every ad agency wants. According to Terry O'Reilly on CBC's Age of Persuasion, anyway.

And, from one of Terry's recent programs, here's one fascinating difference between beer ads in Canada and in the U.S.

In Canada, you can't show people drinking beer. In a beer commercial.

Seriously.

This prohibition apparently leads to other slightly arcane rules. If a beer bottle in a commercial is not full, the commercial has to show beer in a glass; the amount of the beer in the glass has to be the same as the beer no longer in the bottle. Otherwise, you imply that people are drinking beer.

And you can't show more beer containers than people in a scene because that implies that people are drinking, and more than one beer, at that.

I was so astounded by this that I missed some of the other esoterica, which you could probably look up somewhere. One rule had to do with showing cars (maybe all motorized vehicles) in beer ads. You can show them before you show the product, though it's frowned upon. But you can't show them after showing the product, because you can't imply that people drive after they have (not) been drinking. I think.

The other mainstream category I can think of off the top of my head that requires you not show the product being enjoyed is birth control. (Not counting anything in the porn/adult industry.) But fast food? Soft drinks? Cars? Okay, cars generally show a really awesome driver, not you, and no, you're not to attempt what you see, but still, someone is enjoying the product.

From the beer commercial prohibition, I deduce that Canadians are big believers in (a) controlling society through the subliminal messages communicated through advertising, and (b) making life hard for themselves.

At least if I find myself accidentally watching World Cup coverage (the Stanley Cup hunt being over), I'll know what to look for: decadent Americans (gasp) drinking beer!!!!