Kiddy Drinks- 21st Century Style
Our parents would get us "Shirley Temples" It was nothing more than 7-Up with a cheery and coloring. It was a kiddy cocktail. It was just a way to make us feel part of the family when we were at a resturant where alcohol was served and they were drinking. I'm not sure whether it was a good idea or not, but at least our drink had a name other than "7-Up." Well Join Together Online in their news summary has come across this:

U.K. Officials Choke on Kids' Beer
8/22/2005

A Japanese company wants to export "Kids' Beer," a soft drink with a frothy head that's packaged in dark brown bottles and marketed to children who "want to be a bit like an adult," the Telegraph reported Aug. 21.

Kids' Beer is nonalcoholic, but the marketing and packaging of the product makes clear that this is a drink for young people who want to use alcohol. "Even kids cannot stand life unless they have a drink," says one label slogan. Another reads: "For you who cannot drink, a bubbly head that you will like and a fizzy flavor that spreads refreshment through your body -- perfect for those evenings when you want to be a bit like an adult."

"Children always copy adults," said Satoshi Tomoda, president of Tomomasu, which makes Kids' Beer. "If you have this drink at events attended by kids, it would make the occasions even more entertaining."

In and of itself, this doesn't sound all that different from the old Kiddy Cocktail. But underneath it, I have a hunch it is. The whole approach is that the drink will make life better- or at least you can pretend it does. This is a set-up for addiction. It begins a programming of thinking about drinking as a way to change life. That wasn't why we had our cherry-colored 7-Up. We had no thought that alcohol did anything to you.

Which for me is the red-flag about this advertising. Yet is it really all that different from the gobs and gobs of drug ads we see that promise so many things? Probably not. It is all part of the cultural use of chemicals that can become so destructive.