Alcohol Marketing Slide Presentation
Alcohol Marketing is a rich collection of newspaper articles, advertisements and marketing materials, and artifacts that document the impact of the sale and consumption of alcohol on society. The collection also includes a smaller number of resources concerning related topics, such as impaired driving, drug abuse and regulation, and materials related to gambling and the lottery. The collection contains materials from as early as the 1960s to as recent as 2016. Most of the materials are dated from the late 1980s/early 1990s to the present, making the collection particularly relevant to researchers studying trends in alcohol advertising, changes in alcohol regulation, and shifts in how health professionals have addressed questions such as alcohol consumption and treatment for addiction. Although initial research suggests that other online and physical archival collections addressing these topics exist, the Alcohol Research Collection is one of the largest and most extensive collections of its kind, allowing researchers to evaluate the alcohol industry’s impact on society by examining advertising campaigns, business articles and critiques of the alcohol industry, health reports, and newspaper articles exploring the cultural impact of alcohol consumption.
The 102 alcohol marketing images in this section were created beginning in 1977 by Alan Blum, MD (when he co-founded the health promotion organization DOC [Doctors Ought to Care]) for use since then in illustrated presentations at more than 300 middle schools, high schools, alcohol studies conferences, continuing medical education courses, and medical schools. (The first 21 images relate to litigation in federal and Texas state courts brought by Philip Morris, Inc. maker of Miller Lite beer an its slogan “We’re having a party”) in 1989 against Dr. Blum and DOC for their “Killer Lite” t-shirt parody (“We’re grabbing a potty”). The lawsuit was summarily dismissed in the Texas court, and DOC prevailed in federal court, which found that the parody was protected by the First Amendment.
Director’s Note: In January 2023 most of the promotional ephemera and original print materials in the Alcohol Marketing Collection of the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society was acquired by the Center for the History of Medicine at the Countway Library of Harvard Medical School (https://countway.harvard.edu/center-history-medicine).
