Team colors

I’m sitting here at 4:00 pm Sunday afternoon, insulated from the full-blown hysteria in downtown Cleveland that normally surrounds the Browns home opener. (I have the game DVRed, so please don’t tell me the score.) The event is usually preceded by a breadth of tailgate promotions in area grocery stores and state liquor agencies, many of which I’ve encountered in my usual comings-and-goings during the past few weeks.

One in particular stood out—not because of its reach and connection to me as a consumer, but rather it’s relation to an ethics case study I read for this course.

The case study, found in Patterson and Wilkins’ “Media Ethics: Issues & Cases,” dealt with an Anheuser-Busch campaign in which the company’s Bud Light product was distributed in color-coordinated cans that matched the team colors of a given university’s college football team. College administrators quickly expressed their concerns over the distribution and promotion of Bud Light to underage drinkers and whether the cans infringed on trademark rights. Anheuser-Busch agreed to drop the program within any college market that requested it. That was 2009.

Fast forward to present day, and you can now find the Browns teams colors splashed on orange Bud Light cans in grocery stores throughout Northeast Ohio.

In an attempt to exercise my ethical fitness, I want to quickly work through one of many micro issues the Browns color-coordinated cans presents: Whether or not the campaign promotes underage drinking.

While the density of underage drinkers in Cleveland is perhaps less pronounced than a college campus, the city is not without its die-hard Browns fans who would engage in a wealth of activities—legal or not—to show their team spirit. This is no less true for the 20-and-younger crowd, who are just as likely to see the orange cans displayed in grocery stores as are consumers of drinking age.

The discussion here could quickly divulge into one of extremes: Either you allow the Browns-colored cans to be sold or you don’t. But as Kidder reminds us, ethical decision-making often takes us down a middle ground.

That middle ground, as it were, is one already established by government regulations on the sale of alcohol to minors. Post-prohibition era, the argument is not whether not to sell alcohol in general, but rather what restraints on those sales promote some sense of social responsibility. So back to our original question: Do the orange cans promote underage drinking? I don’t think so. For one thing, the cans are not included in targeted outreach to underage audiences. Secondly, the cans are sold within the same restraints as other alcoholic beverages.

Furthermore, the discussion seems to assume responsibility lies solely on Anheuser-Busch. But what about the underage demographic itself? Obviously, young adults deserve an extra veil of protection until they grow into more mature moral agents, but statues limiting the consumption of alcohol by minors are as well-established as those for operating a motor vehicle; if you drink beer when you’re under 21 years of age, you likely know it’s wrong.

The orange can issue, then, emerges more as a result of heterogeneous audiences than anything else. As Patterson and Wilkins state, “Often, advertising intended for one group is seen by another.” Does this mean we eliminate advertising altogether? Of course not. It does mean we exercise some level of restraint, however. And seeing that the Bud Light promotion is not a deliberate attempt to confuse or target minors, I don’t see any dilemma.

OK … time for me to rush home and turn on the Browns game, but not before I make a quick stop to pick up a six-pack; all this talk of beer has made me thirsty.