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Dangerous Promises


Dangerous Promises

In the mid-1990’s Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women (now Peace Over Violence) and The Trauma Foundation developed a campaign called Dangerous Promises: Alcohol Advertising and Violence Against Women. This campaign targeted the 3 major alcohol trade groups (beer, wine, distilled spirits) to establish voluntary Codes of Conduct that would prohibit degrading images of women to be used in alcohol advertising. The campaign developed an effective slide show depicting how alcohol advertising used women and the expectation of sex to sell its product.

  • Woodruff, K. Alcohol advertising and violence against women: A media advocacy case study. Health Education Quarterly, 23(3):330-345, August 1996. Contact Berkeley Media Studies Group for a copy.

As a result of the campaign, the Wine Institute and the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States(DISCUS) established Codes of Conduct. Starting in 2005 DISCUS issued reports of the violations of the code — some ads have been removed. While the beer industry has not joined and there continue to be violations, many major industry trade groups have codes that prohibit such ads. DISCUS issues Code of Responsible Behavior and Semi Annual Code Reports are available at https://www.distilledspirits.org/code-of-responsible-practices/