Marketing works.

Marketing unhealthy products works really well. Cigarette manufacturers never seem to see a down-turn.

Now, from a broader story on a trend about an increase in drinking among teen-aged girls, is a paragraph which shows how clever these alcohol manufacturers are with this group.

It is important that these products not slip under the adult radar. Packaging alcohol to look like a food which is associated with fitness is one bold leap of imagination almost no other marketers could think of. That is a wow idea for the company—but not for the customers.

Newsweek

…”For years, boys were the focus of underage-drinking interventions, but for the past decade, researchers have seen a close in the gender gap, and the media have jumped on the news. Researchers speculate that more products devoted to making drinking easier and tastier—the sugar-laden beverages known as alco-pops—are a factor. “There’s a whole new raft of products that have come out in the last 10 to 12 years that were oriented to young females,” says David Jerigan, executive director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth. “Alcohol now gets sold to girls as a functional food: it gets sold with calorie information, a drink of fitness, a drink with health benefits.”

Source: Newsweek Interactive, June 29, 2010

Source: Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth