If you’ve ever turned on a television for more than a few minutes, you’ve probably seen at least one beer commercial. They’re usually full of friends having a good time and cracking open a cold beer, but have you ever seen someone actually sip one of those beers? The answer is likely no — not even for special productions like the Super Bowl — and it has to do with television regulations.
To be clear, you can legally drink beer in a commercial. However, you’ll almost never see any alcohol brand do it. This regulation doesn’t come from the federal government; the government actually has no hard-and-fast rules about showing anyone consuming alcohol in commercials. It actually comes down to the networks themselves, all of which generally look down on alcohol consumption on camera. As a result, alcohol brands refrain from putting any alcohol-drinking visuals in their commercials because that means the ad could get banned from certain networks, ultimately trimming the audience who might see it. Since brands want their commercials shown on as many networks as possible, it’s best to act conservatively when it comes to drinking beer on screen.
There are no laws against drinking beer on camera
The act of avoiding on-camera beer consumption is actually more of a long-standing agreement among television networks. The National Association of Broadcasters doesn’t have any laws against it, and when the FCC was asked about the situation, a press officer told Politifact, “Congress has not enacted any law prohibiting broadcast advertising of any kind of alcoholic beverage, and the FCC does not have a rule or policy regulating such advertisements.”
In a sense, it’s just a form of self-regulation that all of the large-scale networks have agreed to. ABC, for example, offers up all of its advertising standards and guidelines surrounding commercials. Under the “general” rules section regarding alcohol, ABC writes, “The following elements are generally not acceptable.” Below that, it reads, “Visual representations or sound effects of drinking.”
So, if a beer company produced a commercial with someone consuming alcohol, there’s a good chance it wouldn’t be shown on a massive network like ABC. Beer drinking has declined in recent years, so these beer brands likely feel commercials are more necessary than ever. But producers have become so creative about beer commercials and their plot lines to the point where you probably never even noticed that nobody takes an actual sip.
