If beer just doesn’t taste the same without an objectified woman on the label, you’re in for a disappointment.
The Brewers Association, a nonprofit trade group for small, independent craft brewers, added new guidelines to how they recommend breweries market their beers: without names or labels that can be viewed as sexist or demeaning.
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The guidelines state that marketing materials, including labels, should not:
- contain sexually explicit, lewd, or demeaning brand names, language, text, graphics, photos, video, or other images that reasonable adult consumers would find inappropriate for consumer products offered to the public; or
- contain derogatory or demeaning text or images.
These suggestions are in addition to common sense practices like avoiding encouraging underage consumption or drunk driving in marketing.
These guidelines will also affect how the Brewers Association recognized award-winning beers. According to beer industry blog Draft:
The organization also announced that beers entered into its annual Great American Beer Festival and biennial World Beer Cup competitions would henceforth be subject to review by the newly formed Advertising Complaint Review Panel composed of three members independent from the beer industry with experience in law, marketing and academia (you can read about the panel and their qualifications using that link). Brands the panel finds fall outside the BA’s advertising code will still be allowed to win the awards, but will be banned from using them in any brewery marketing (by putting the GABF medal on the beer’s label, for instance) and will not have their names announced during award ceremonies.
As more women enter the brewing world—or re-enter, as women were some of the first people to brew beer in history—an increased focus on diversity has become important to the industry. “One thing the diversity committee will potentially focus on is the creation of a scholarship, formed with board of director backing, to encourage a more diverse group of applicants into craft brewing community jobs,” Julia Herz, the BA’s craft beer program director, told Draft. Cheers to squashing sexism.
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