Sixties of the last century on Spanish television. A girl with straight, blonde hair looks at the camera leaning on the bar of a bar full of male characters. He holds a bottle of brandy and repeats "Sovereign is a man's thing." A decade later, alcohol ads hadn't changed much: Another blonde woman rides a white horse wearing only a T-shirt. It is the reverie of a man in a suit, Terry glass in hand. At the end of the spot, a sweet voice says "You really know."

At that time, the two television channels that almost everyone in our country watched were the most powerful broadcast and marketing platforms for the alcohol industry. There is another ad that lasts more than a minute –more than 800,000 views on YouTube– and cries out to heaven. To promote a cognac tells the story of a woman who goes to a fortune teller to find out what she can do about a husband who doesn't kiss her when he comes home, is always in a bad mood and even scolds and slaps him. The psychic tells her: “You have thought that your husband works long hours and has the right, when he comes home, to find a pleasant welcome. Look here and make sure that he never lacks a glass of cognac. You will see how it does not fail”. The woman directs her gaze to the crystal ball and sees her husband sitting in the armchair reading the newspaper, she brings him his alcoholic dose and he is happy and affectionate.

It's a good thing the world has changed. Now, with women incorporated into consumption in a social reality that is very different, the ways of selling are different. Social media is the perfect medium. A recent research work carried out in the United Kingdom has analyzed more than 2,600 publications of 20 well-known alcohol brands on Facebook and Instagram in a period of 18 months (between January 2019 and June 2020) and has concluded that "the marketing of alcohol brands encourage alcohol consumptionamong women by perpetuating and challenging gender stereotypes. Brands' claims about their commitment to equality are contradicted by alcohol-related harms, which contribute to widening social and health inequalities.”

The gender gap in consumption has narrowed

According to the study "Pretty in Pink" and "Girl Power": An analysis of the orientation and representation of women in the marketing of alcohol brands on Facebook and Instagram, whose excerpt has just been published by the scientific platform Sciencedirect and al that has had access to its full content Raise your head, on social networks brands assign women “a series of gender roles that recognized their individual pleasures and achievements, and traditional gender roles and stereotypes were reinforced and rejected to promote alcohol consumption. There was a significant shift away from the sexualization and degradation of women towards the appropriation of feminist and equality messages, which may attract a greater number of women, including those who adopt feminist identities.”

The study is led by Dr. Amanda Atkinson, Principal Investigator at the UK Institute of Public Health and Professor at Liverpool John Moores University. Atkinson is a renowned expert on gender issues and alcohol and other substance use among young people, and she has also spent time trying to explain the influence of the media on alcohol intake. “This is the first study to explore the scope and nature of gender-responsive alcohol marketing on Facebook and Instagram,” it says in the document.

The researcher acknowledges that in recent years alcoholic beverage brands have changed "the way they address women, represent them and attract them." At work, she explains that, although alcohol consumption and damage to health are more frequent among men, the gender gap has narrowed in countries like the United Kingdom. The increase in alcohol consumption (and the damage) in women would be motivated by their greater economic independence, greater participation in education, work and public space, easier access to alcohol and the feminization of the environment and the night economy .

In the United Kingdom – but it can spread to other neighboring countries – the culture of drinking and drunkenness is linked to the search for belonging to the group, and in the neoliberal system “it becomes a marker of the creation of identity together with the discourses of individualism, choice and responsibility”, explains the author. Discourses that "overlap and intertwine" with those of post-feminism: autonomy, empowerment and freedom. Atkinson recalls that historically, women who drink have been stigmatized and portrayed as lacking in femininity, as sexually promiscuous and out of control. "Within a supposed post-feminist society, in which gender equality is taken for granted, alcohol consumption has been interpreted as social progress and as a right to choose, express and enjoy."

Wine for women, beer for men

In this context, social networks such as Facebook and Instagram are an essential piece of the alcohol industry's marketing strategies, "and have been shown to influence the type of consumption": They communicate with consumers, increase brand awareness, drive engagement and sales, and collect data on user preferences and online behavior. “They also allow merchants to optimize ad targeting and integrate with the purchasing decisions of subgroups of consumers, including women,” she says.

To look at how the alcohol industry targets women on these social networks, and how they represent them, Atkinson and her team archived 2,600 posts, of which more than 86% were categorized as gender and nearly 60% of these were directed at or represented women. Thus, for example, they verified that wine brands and their posts on Facebook and Instagram are directed more to women, and beer brands to men, although the latter "have recently tried to gain a greater share of the female market."

Among the strategies used to reach consumers, beverage brands take advantage of seasonal and climatic references, associations with the day and time of the week, sponsorship of musical events, beverage recipes and engagement techniques, such as encouraging followers to comment or tag their friends on posts. The research work details some examples of how marketing content is conditioned by gender. “Women's beverage brands used terms like 'wine time,' 'wine o'clock,' or 'gin o'clock,' commonly used by women.

'Influencers' and contests

While wine brands collaborate with female fashion influencers, beer brands collaborate with male craft beer bloggers. "The tagged accounts had a combined reach of 68,234,559 users on social networks," the research highlights. They had more than 2 million 'likes', close to 350,000 comments and the videos more than 75 million views.

Regarding the type of contests created by alcoholic brands on social networks, those for wine offered prizes such as pink products, makeup and attendance at fashion events, and those for beer, alcoholic products and tickets to sporting events.

It is true that the researcher admits that brands try to be more inclusive and broaden their appeal “by presenting femininities and masculinities that deviate from normative representations”. Another result is that women were represented drinking alone much more than men, almost twice as much, especially at home.

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The use of influencers is one of the main innovations. The study clarifies that they are useful for brands because they provide a means to represent alcohol "in a way that branded content cannot" and "they often publish pro-alcohol content on behalf of brands (...) and provide a medium for targeting consumers through gender messages”.

No 'machirulas' jokes or sexualization

An important finding is that they did not find any sexual objectification that degraded or dehumanized women, and they also detected an “absence of jokes”, of that masculine humor that can imply sexism. Although it is also true that campaigns on social networks restrict the choice by betting on linking women's consumption with "liquid products and pink containers", especially in gins, and feminizing the design with floral or shiny images, including recipes. of alcoholic cocktails, where it is suggested that women are in charge of improving the aesthetics of the drinks by adding accessories such as flowers, glitter and pink cotton candy. However, associating pink and femininity has broader appeal “when placed within a post-feminist and fourth-wave feminist context in which there has been a resurgence in the popularity of pink and feminine aesthetics.” among (young) adult women, who have reclaimed it as an expression of empowerment and a celebration of femininity,” says Atkinson. The same happens with the use of makeup, painted nails, shoes or accessories.

For example, a well-known sparkling brand appropriated the speech from the popular movie Mean Girls, considered in some circles to be post-feminist, to encourage weekday beverage consumption under the slogan 'On Wednesdays, we drink pink ' together with a well-known influencer.

“By drawing textually and visually on the longstanding cultural association between the color pink and femininity, brands were able to assign a gender to their products, restricting choice but encouraging its use. Consequently, the products were reduced to aesthetic accessories that symbolized and celebrated a very specific form of traditional and post-feminine femininity; a feminine, pretty, pink, pleasant femininity focused on appearance”, they comment on the results of the study.

Another curiosity is that wine and gin brands target women through complicit language (“best friends”, “sisters” or “queens”) to encourage alcohol consumption among friends at home , picnics or drinks venues, at different times of the day (brunch, aftershoot, evening or wine o'clock) and every day of the week. "Alcohol consumption," Atkinson explains, "was presented to women as an essential component of female friendship."

The concept 'perfect girls' night out' was also used on social networks to induce eating in preparations for a night out. That celebration of female friendship to sell more bottles using celebrities from the digital age was also used to launch messages with a post-feminist background: give priority to your friends over romantic relationships. With this excuse, brands encouraged tagging friends and participating in contests. Some brands “framed being single as a sign of independence and empowerment by stating in a post: ‘Never forget, ladies, that you should be as picky about your men as you are about your selfies’” with the hashtag #IndependentWomen. Other brands associated alcohol consumption with well-being and free time. "What are your best self-care tips for Sunday?" asked a brand next to an image with bath products and bottles of wine.

Intake linked to purchases, diets and makeup

“The messages that describe maternity and the working life of women promote consumption as a reward for individual success”, and, on the other hand, they also promote a femininity based on appearance and corporeality and always combining intake of alcohol with clothing purchases, beauty regimes or makeup. "It's time for a face mask and a glass of something new," suggested the online content of a North American wine giant. And always with a language of empowerment and choice.

Focusing on appearance-based traits and activities, such as long painted nails and makeup, “can seem to reproduce traditional negative stereotypes that reduce women to appearance. However, in the context of fourth-wave feminism, this type of marketing has an undercurrent of empowerment through reclaiming traditional forms of femininity, and as such may not alienate women through the use of stereotypes." comments the study.

Commodification of female empowerment

Unlike those advertisements of the last century, now women appear drinking with men, in public spaces, “implying that the visibility of women in places previously dominated by men is proof of gender equality”, and its alcohol consumption is presented as an essential element of socialization "and drinking as a form of feminine union, as an act of empowerment." Interestingly, the brands do not use the words 'feminist' or 'feminism' in their content, perhaps to avoid negative connotations that some give to the term. In the end, one of the debates is how the industry has intensified "the commodification of female empowerment to incorporate feminist undertones" that encourage more drinking.

Alcohol and Mental Health in Women

On the other hand, and according to Atkinson's analysis, Facebook and Instagram encourage consumption as “a feminine way of dealing with stress, which is problematic when alcohol and mental health are related” .

In conclusion, the research argues that the marketing of alcohol brands presents women's consumption as a feminine practice that combines traditional, post-feminist and feminist femininities. Much of the strategy is aimed at younger women and "although the women portrayed tended to be white," many showed a more diverse perspective with women of color included. “Alcohol use is presented as an important aspect of 'having it all,' including slimness, grooming, fashion clothing and accessories, meaningful friendships, and successfully managing women's multiple social roles (i.e., , friend, mother, worker)”.

Finally, the scientific team admits that brands, with their initiatives on Facebook and Instagram, fail to alter the “structural” inequalities that harm women. "Instead, this appropriation of empowerment and equality is used by corporations to increase their profits, broadening their appeal to women and men who can identify as feminists." The lead researcher at the Institute of Public Health in the United Kingdom describes as crucial that we are talking about a commodity that is directly related to many diseases that affect women, “including breast cancer. Therefore, the equality messages that are used to promote alcoholic products are in contradiction with the harms that alcohol causes to women and minority groups”.