Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
740-759)
MS CHARLOTTE
THOMPSON, MR
JOSEPH PETYAN,
MR CHRIS
MORRIS AND
MR ANDREW
MCGUINNESS
9 JULY 2009
Q740 Dr Naysmith: How can it be acceptable
that adverts using this strap line are still being streamed through
the Lambrini website?
Ms Thompson: Any of the advertising
material that we have produced—the consumer facing line
for Lambrini is now "Do the Lambrini"—we take
the codes very seriously and I can assure you that nothing that
the agency has produced carries the line "Lambrini girls
just wanna have fun". The website you are referring to, which
I am familiar with, is the corporate website. We had a campaign
website, which is "Do the Lambrini"; on the corporate
website there is an archive of old adverts. I am not sure what
the statistics are in terms of who accesses those adverts, but
as in many corporate websites which is predominantly for trade
consumption the archive and the history of the brand is documented.
Those ads I know are not downloadable so you cannot access them
and put them on your own computer but you can see them there.
Q741 Sandra Gidley: A question to
Joseph. If you could look at page 8 there is an image from the
Sidekick campaign. It that your responsibility?
Mr Petyan: No. I am afraid it
is as per my previous answer; it is nothing to do with JWT London.
Q742 Sandra Gidley: Did we get it
wrong or did your company deliberately send the wrong person along
who cannot answer any questions?
Mr Petyan: I have been in lengthy
correspondence with the Committee over a long period of time since
the initial requests were made and we have given all the information
and assistance that we can to this point where I am attending
today.
Q743 Sandra Gidley: Perhaps you can
comment anyway. This Sidekick advert starts off with 5.30
at night, "Pop to shops on way home from work. Buy shots
on impulse. 6.30, get ready for a night out and get in the mood.
7 p.m. Drink at home to start night off. Neck a few shots between
beers/wines." Later on at 9.30 "Do shots in between
rounds. 11.30 p.m. Too full for pints so turn to shots. 3 a.m.
Home to bed?" It does not question whether the bed is actually
at home or in hospital really. You may not be able to comment
on any responsibility for this but do you think that that complies
with the code about which we have been hearing, that you will
encourage responsible drinking?
Mr Petyan: Again, you have partially
answered my question for me. I would say personally that in my
remit and in our company's remit and the work that we do for Diageo—and
this is work, I must stress, I have never seen before and we have
not done (Sidekick is a Halewood Brand)—we adhere
very strictly to the rules and the engagement that is laid out
both in the Diageo marketing code and also in the BCAP and CAP
rules of engagement and we take that extremely seriously. I refer
back to my previous answer at the outset, which is that it is
a severe detriment to us as a business were we to fall foul of
those codes by reputation and commercially, so to me I have no
input on this, but it is something that we would not have produced
based on the rules of engagement that we have with our clients.
Q744 Sandra Gidley: So this is obviously
produced behind the scenes. This is a power point presentation
so it did not appear on the Web, but it clearly indicates the
sorts of thinking going on behind the making of an advert, surely?
Mr Petyan: You raise an important
point because again I have no knowledge of this particular issue
or screen grab whatever it is and I do not know anything about
its genesis but what I can say is that you have raised an interesting
point about what goes on internally because the series of processes,
the checks and balances—and I can show you the depth of
the Diageo codes that every supplier agency works to and the processes
which look as complicated and detailed as this, [he holds up code
and process] but they are all in place to ensure that anything
that does take place—it should not, but if it does—then
it is only internally and it never reaches the general public,
and that is the intent behind the code.
Q745 Sandra Gidley: But there is
an important point that these internal documents actually are
very illustrative about the real thinking and the real motivation
behind some of your campaigns, so by the time they reach the consumer
they are diluted, but obviously if you are a creative industry
you would be doing yourself a disservice if you said that you
could not creatively work around some of these backroom briefs
to produce an advert that gave the right impression.
Ms Thompson: If I could respond
to that? Looking at this, it looks like a power point document
that was produced in May 2005. Since BJL were employed by Halewood
last year they have asked us to look at some strategic repositioning
work for Sidekick, which should be in your evidence submission
as well. With both that and Lambrini our brief is to ensure that
responsible drinking is encouraged and Sidekick as a product
is no longer available in shot format as it was back then. There
were a series of new regulations that were brought in in 2005
and if you look at advertising pre-2005 and post-2005 the content
is distinctly different, and I think rightly so. It sticks to
the rules and this sort of thing would never happen now.
Q746 Sandra Gidley: So in essence
you are saying that it has interest as an historic document?
Ms Thompson: Yes.
Q747 Sandra Gidley: And it would
never happen now?
Ms Thompson: It would never happen
now, and I confidently say that you have seen our Sidekick
strategy and that is all about thinking of Sidekick not
as a shot product but as a product that you can use in different
circumstances; so it might be as a long drink to be diluted with
a soft drink, it might be as a cocktail ingredient. But it is
now in a 500 ml screw top format so it is not presented as a shot
drink.[1]
Q748 Sandra Gidley: We will move
on to what is happening now. If you look at page 10, this is WKD.
Which one of you is responsible for that—Mr Morris, I think?
This again I think is a power slide but we have a brand WKD and
45% of volume men and the bottom point says, "Importance
of advertising and campaigns to communicate maleness and personality."
Is that not against the code?
Mr Morris: No. I can see where
your point comes from but this is quite different from the construct
of the advertising that we create under the codes. This is internal
discussion again; it is based on research; it is based on the
market descriptions and it is simply saying that in a category
like RTDs there are female drinkers and there are male drinkers
and when brands differentiate themselves in order to gain a market
share from their competitors some brands may choose to be more
female orientated with their brand personality and other brands,
like WKD, will try to be male in its orientation of that brand
personality. That is what that is saying; that the maleness of
the brand personality needs to be borne in mind in the communication
and not promoting any kind of male prowess of anything like that.
The rules would not permit that, the company code would not permit
that; the Beverage Brands code would not permit that—it
is not an area we would ever go into. It is simply the brand personality
description for an internal discussion on targeting.
Q749 Sandra Gidley: But surely that
feeds into how you try and portray the product. So you may not
have WKD TV ads portraying masculinity or laddishness but the
website, much as in the way that Charles and Dave or Kevin and
Dave or whoever it was, it was clearly a laddish approach.
Mr Morris: We describe that target
audience as social lads and we make no bones about that and in
our description of social lads we are in touch with the 20-something
market of today. We are trying to reflect our brand as being in
touch with that market; that we resonate with them and we share
their personality, share their sense of humour, basically. Social
lads are everyday working guys or they may be university students.
They like to socialise, they are heavily into socialising and
that is an important part of their world as guys. They like to
go out with their friends; they like to go to the cinema or to
go to the pub, and this really is the description and it is keeping
our thinking on track in having that audience in mind when we
create this brand and when we create the communication of this
brand, in line with the regulations.
Q750 Sandra Gidley: If you turn to
page 11 there is something called a "big creative brief".
Point 4: "What do we want our audience to think, feel or
do? I tend to drink WKD during a night out as a change of pace
when beer is getting a bit much for me." Is that promoting
responsible drinking?
Mr Morris: Again it comes back
to the difference between—this is an internally created
brief, as I am sure you are aware, an internal document to help
our creative teams get the idea of what we are trying to communicate.
This is actually just a description of what we would like our
audience to think. We are aware that RTD and not just WKD has
a functional use as described by our users in that sometimes after
a couple of drinks of lager or cider they may try an RTD product
to clean the palate or for a change of pace—as a description
of it. This comes from research into the actual way of life of
real-life users. It was not what we want to propagate and certainly
it was not the kind of message that you will see anywhere in our
advertising and if we ever tried to do anything it would not be
permitted and quite rightly so.
Q751 Sandra Gidley: But it is not
overt, it is covert is it not because let us start from the basics.
The drinks industry would not go out of business but would be
considerably the poorer and the advertisers would be considerably
the poorer too if everybody drank responsibly. So there is no
incentive for the drinks industry to genuinely want to have people
drinking responsibly. Some of the material we have seen that are
backroom briefings for the advertising industry clearly show this.
You have to keep your customer happy within the code, so is it
not the case that you are ever more being forced to think creatively
about how to portray some of these laddish drinking fun images
within the spirit of the code?
Mr Morris: I would say absolutely
not. The industry has every incentive—every incentive—to
encourage people to drink responsibly and indeed takes actions
towards that. We as a brand have worked with the Montfort University
for about a year now, taking to students to try and really get
under the skin on a peer to peer basis of what they would do because
they are aware too that there are some minorities that are behaving
irresponsibly with alcohol. The outcome of that is for us to produce
a communication campaign with those students. They put in ideas
and we put in ideas and we have researched our ideas with them—it
is called "Look after your mates". It talks about the
antisocial and health and harmful consequences of irresponsible
drinking amongst their friends and this is potential, I hope,
for the future. 150,000 posters have been printed and will be
in 30,000 pubs next week, any time now. So I think to suggest
that irresponsible drinking is our way to sell more stuff is absolutely
wrong. It would cut off our noses very quickly if that is what
we actually did, were seen to do or wanted to do. We do not want
to do that; we want a healthy, responsible drinking environment
then we can all compete properly for a safe market with a legal
drinking age consumer.
Q752 Sandra Gidley: How many times
has a WKD advert been the subject of a complaint and being found
to have breached the code?
Mr Morris: In nine years of television
advertising we have produced 32 TV commercials and we have had
two upheld complaints under alcohol laws. Both of those were commercials
made pre the Ofcom regulations that I referred to earlier. We
were given permission, approval to rerun those commercials post
the Ofcom changes, whilst producing new commercials. We had complaints
about those two ads and those complaints were upheld. Those are
the only commercials under alcohol rules and there have been no
upheld complaints since then.
Q753 Chairman: Can I ask you, Chris,
because the strap line across there is, "What do we want
our audience to think, feel or do?" Would you not want your
audience to think that if they get to a situation where "beer
is getting a bit much for me" to stop drinking?
Mr Morris: Yes. But realistically
this is focused on a job. We are an advertising agency with a
client and our job is to help enhance their market share.
Q754 Chairman: As a beer drinker—or
an ex-beer drinker really—the idea that I would want to
clean my palate after a beer has got too much for me with a spirit-based
drink is a bit beyond belief, quite frankly, with all respect.
I just find that no matter what the advert says if this is what
the backroom is what are we to think?
Mr Morris: Again, it is painting
a picture for our creative people to understand the market and
the consumer to whom we are communicating. It is a picture of
some people in the real world of 20-something behaviour. But we
are not in any way—
Q755 Chairman: It's a picture. I
accept that entirely but I am not sure whether it should be encouraged.
Mr Morris: I am not encouraging
it because that communication absolutely does not encourage it;
our company does, Beverage Brands codes, the ASA codes absolutely
forbid encouragement of excessive consumption.
Chairman: We do understand what the codes
say.
Q756 Stephen Hesford: Cheethambell,
JWT—you are JWT.
Mr Petyan: London, yes.
Q757 Stephen Hesford: And you are
managing director.
Mr Petyan: Joint managing director,
yes.
Q758 Stephen Hesford: What relationship
does JWT London have strictly with Cheethambell JWT?
Mr Petyan: Shared ownership through
WPP, the holding company.
Q759 Stephen Hesford: What is your
share of Cheethambell JWT shared ownership in relation to your
company?
Mr Petyan: WPP owns both companies.
Whilst JWT Manchester—Cheethambell Manchester—is a
separate legal entity I believe it is wholly owned by JWT. But
I am the joint managing director of JWT London and we have separate
clients, separate products and communication separate business
models and separate operations.
1 Note by witness: Although the bulk is now sold in
500ml bottles, there is still some distribution of the pack format. Back
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