Toys Encouraging Alcohol Use By Children

In a recent campaign Budweiser featured its "Wazzzup" slogan. Although the original commercials featured adult actors, Budweiser soon introduced animals and space aliens into its campaign to make sure children got its message. Click here to see an example .

Other companies who market to children soon jumped on the bandwagon. Click here to see an example of a children's show on Fox that parodied the Budweiser ads .

 

 

 

And J.C. Penny's also thought it was suitable to market this slogan to children. To avoid paying royalties to Bud, Penny's changed the spelling so that the slogan used "sss" instead of "zzz." They then sold adult tee-shirts printed with the slogan. Company policy dictates that if a clothing product for adults sells well after it's introduced, the product is then marketed to teens. The teen Wasssup tee-shirts quickly sold out and company policy dictated the shirts be offered in their pre-teen departments. No one at J.C. Penny's bothered to consider the consequences of marketing shirts with alcohol slogans on them to teens and pre-teens. Maximizing sales drove their company's policies.

This tee-shirt demonstrates the mentality many marketers have when it comes to positioning alcohol use around children. They think it's a joke. Although this shirt is marketed to adults, the message it sends is a problem for children everywhere. Adults who think that sneaking a drink makes a child grown up are more likely to rear a child who will spend a portion of their life dealing with alcoholism. Regrettably, the cycle of alcoholism could be passed on for generations. How funny is a joke like that.

 

 

These two tee-shirts for girls demonstrates Abercombie & Fitch's commitment to teaching children that drinking is just like eating candy.