Bar advert banned for encouraging 'binge drinking'

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled the Facebook post by The Folly Bar in Boston, Lincolnshire was ‘irresponsible’.

The watchdog received one complaint over the post, uploaded in September, which featured the image of a man leaning against a bar and the text: “Buy your own keg for you and your friends! Over 50 cold pints available at your fingertips…Have it next to your table in the main room, our private room or outside in the beer garden”.

The Folly Bar said as the keg was only offered to groups of 10 or more this amounted to up to five pints per person, which it did not deem ‘excessive’.

It told the ASA the keg was only available to pre-order online where customers had to confirm the size of their group, and staff monitored consumption.

The bar offered to amend the post to state it was for group bookings, and said its local licensing authority had no issue with the advert.

But the ASA ruled the promotion encouraged customers to exceed the Office for National Statistics' (ONS) definition of binge drinking, which is over eight units in a single session for men and over six units for women.

The ASA said: “We understood that five pints of 5% beer such as the one on offer equated to 14 units, which went beyond the ONS’s definition binge drinking, and went against the [UK Chief Medical Officer’s] advice to spread the units evenly across the week.

“In light of the above, we considered the ad was irresponsible because it encouraged the excessive consumption of alcohol.”