Which are top 3 liquour companies in volume and value?!
Which are top 3 liquour companies in volume and value?
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For a top liquor company, sober ads help keep regulators away
By Melanie Warner The New York Times
TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 2005
The hottest trend in the spirits business these days is not raspberry vodka or pomegranate martinis but something far less intoxicating: self-regulation.
To counter accusations that alcohol companies produce ads that promote underage drinking, Allied Domecq, owner of brands like Sauza, Stolichnaya and Malibu, plans to release a report this week detailing the findings of its self-regulatory marketing review board.
The board, composed of six people who are not employed full time by Allied Domecq, reviews the company's advertising before it is released.
"If we say no to a particular campaign, it doesn't run," said one board member, Lisa Graham Keegan, an educational consultant and a former member of the House of Representatives in Arizona. The company, however, has the final word on any individual advertisement.
The board, which was set up in 2003, meets four times a year; members are each paid $20,000 annually. Board members say that on numerous occasions they have vetoed ads that they deemed too risqué or inappropriate.
Keegan said the board was likely to reject any ad that was overtly sexual or suggested that drinking alcohol would make people act wild and crazy. According to the report, she and other board members vetoed a magazine ad featuring a man and a woman dancing suggestively on a table at a dinner party.
The group also quashed the idea of Allied Domecq's becoming a sponsor of Nascar, the stock-car racing organization, because that would create an association between alcohol and driving. The board similarly decided to stop supporting a watercraft race championship in Spain. Diageo, the world's largest spirits company, is among those that take a different view. The company sponsors the Nascar driver Kurt Busch through two of its brands. Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser beer sponsors Dale Earnhardt, while Busch is lead sponsor of the Nascar Busch Series.
The fact that Allied Domecq submits its marketing to a review board shows how far some in the business are willing to go to pre-empt regulation and avoid consumer backlash. Currently, five lawsuits filed in U.S. state courts seek to hold liquor and beer companies accountable for what the lawsuits say is irresponsible marketing. Allied is one of the companies named in the suits.
"Thanks to our review board, we are more confident than ever that our decision-making can withstand external scrutiny," Philip Bowman, the chief executive of Allied Domecq, wrote in the report, a copy of which was given to The New York Times.
In the late 1990s, at the urging of Congress, the Federal Trade Commission completed an investigation of alcohol advertising and underage drinking and urged the industry to do more self-regulating. In response, the industry's chief trade group, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, set up voluntary codes of conduct for members. Recommendations include avoiding images of cartoon characters that appeal to people under 21 and shunning ads that highlight "the intoxicating effects" of drinking.
Jim O'Hara, executive director at the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University, which monitors the liquor industry, said companies needed to do more. The council's guidelines state that alcohol ads should run only in media outlets that have no more than 30 percent of their audience members under age 21.
"The threshold should be more like 15 percent," he said.
The hottest trend in the spirits business these days is not raspberry vodka or pomegranate martinis but something far less intoxicating: self-regulation.
To counter accusations that alcohol companies produce ads that promote underage drinking, Allied Domecq, owner of brands like Sauza, Stolichnaya and Malibu, plans to release a report this week detailing the findings of its self-regulatory marketing review board.
The board, composed of six people who are not employed full time by Allied Domecq, reviews the company's advertising before it is released.
"If we say no to a particular campaign, it doesn't run," said one board member, Lisa Graham Keegan, an educational consultant and a former member of the House of Representatives in Arizona. The company, however, has the final word on any individual advertisement.
The board, which was set up in 2003, meets four times a year; members are each paid $20,000 annually. Board members say that on numerous occasions they have vetoed ads that they deemed too risqué or inappropriate.
Keegan said the board was likely to reject any ad that was overtly sexual or suggested that drinking alcohol would make people act wild and crazy. According to the report, she and other board members vetoed a magazine ad featuring a man and a woman dancing suggestively on a table at a dinner party.
The group also quashed the idea of Allied Domecq's becoming a sponsor of Nascar, the stock-car racing organization, because that would create an association between alcohol and driving. The board similarly decided to stop supporting a watercraft race championship in Spain. Diageo, the world's largest spirits company, is among those that take a different view. The company sponsors the Nascar driver Kurt Busch through two of its brands. Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser beer sponsors Dale Earnhardt, while Busch is lead sponsor of the Nascar Busch Series.
The fact that Allied Domecq submits its marketing to a review board shows how far some in the business are willing to go to pre-empt regulation and avoid consumer backlash. Currently, five lawsuits filed in U.S. state courts seek to hold liquor and beer companies accountable for what the lawsuits say is irresponsible marketing. Allied is one of the companies named in the suits.
"Thanks to our review board, we are more confident than ever that our decision-making can withstand external scrutiny," Philip Bowman, the chief executive of Allied Domecq, wrote in the report, a copy of which was given to The New York Times.
In the late 1990s, at the urging of Congress, the Federal Trade Commission completed an investigation of alcohol advertising and underage drinking and urged the industry to do more self-regulating. In response, the industry's chief trade group, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, set up voluntary codes of conduct for members. Recommendations include avoiding images of cartoon characters that appeal to people under 21 and shunning ads that highlight "the intoxicating effects" of drinking.
Jim O'Hara, executive director at the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University, which monitors the liquor industry, said companies needed to do more. The council's guidelines state that alcohol ads should run only in media outlets that have no more than 30 percent of their audience members under age 21.
"The threshold should be more like 15 percent," he said.
gs
Source(s):
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/27/b...
aristocrat, jacquin's and bowman's
The three largest liquor companies in terms of market capitalization are:
1. Diageo PLC $55.8 B
2. Brown Forman Inc $8.5 B
3. Constellation Brands $5.4 B
Bacardi is private, so their market cap isn't reported, but I believe that their brands (Bacardi Rum, Bombay Gin, etc.) place them either second or third on this list.