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Gun-shaped vodka bottle breaks marketing rules

Red Army Vodka, packaged in a Kalashnikov-shaped bottle, has been ruled "entirely inappropriate" for suggesting a link towards violent and dangerous behaviour.

A complaint, submitted by the Independent Complaints Panel of the Responsible Retailing Code of Northern Ireland, claimed the product was closely linked with violent, aggressive, dangerous or anti-social behaviour.

But producer Bartex said the vodka was merely shaped as a gun and sold in a gift pack, and had no association with weapons or violent behaviour. It added that it did not intend to 'create or promote violence', stating the company produced alcohol, not weapons.

But the Portman Group's Independent Complaints Panel (ICP) concluded that the name Red Army and the packaging were entirely inappropriate for an alcoholic drink. As such, the ICP found the product to be in breach of the Portman Group's Code of Practice on the Naming, Packaging and Promotion of Alcoholic Drinks.

Henry Ashworth, chief executive of the Portman Group, which provides the Secretariat for the ICP, said: "Strict UK alcohol marketing rules specifically prohibit an alcoholic drink from being sold if it has any association with bravado, or with violent, aggressive, dangerous or anti-social behaviour. On this occasion, the Panel ruled that the product name in the context of the packaging, together with the packaging itself, was too strongly linked to these themes. We therefore appeal to retailers not to stock the product its current packaging after 20 June."

The Portman Group is the responsibility body for the alcohol industry.  It is funded by its ten member companies: AB InBev UK; Bacardi Brown-Forman Brands UK; SHS Drinks (formerly Beverage Brands UK); C&C Group plc; Carlsberg UK; Diageo GB; Heineken UK; Molson Coors Brewing Company UK; Pernod Ricard UK; and SAB Miller.

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