One of my vestiges of
Scottishness is that I buy Scotland on Sunday, the Sunday paper of the Scotsman Group every week. I usually get round to reading it sometime towards the end of the week, but had read it yesterday, apart from sport and business. I read them this morning over a pot of tea. The business section was headlined by the news that Molson Coors is ending its £2.2 million a year, seven year sponsorship of Rangers and Celtic. Paul Miller, director of sales for Molson Coors Scotland, said Scottish legislation was "difficult to understand" and interpret.It seems this relates mostly to promotion and sales of the ubiquitous lager, predominantly in the off trade, but in pubs as well, as Scottish Government legislation disallows promotions that encourage increased drinking. Bit of a bummer that for the promotions team, I'll bet. A perplexed Miller said "that the group struggled with the impact of promotion of alcohol in "on trade" pubs. If a promotion offers someone a free pint of beer, is that encouraging someone to consume more than they would otherwise consume? I guess the answer would be yes. But curiously, to the letter of the legislation, it doesn't. That is the difficulty, to understand what can and can't be done. The important thing for us is we don't contravene the spirit of the legislation."
Well Mr Miller, I'm no lawyer but I'd have thought the important thing is not to break the actual law. The law's spirit is quite a different matter, but nonetheless, it's a point that does have some resonance. When CAMRA offered its 50p off a pint Wetherspoon's vouchers to members, initially they were not valid in Scotland until advice was sought, so it isn't straightforward. Of course you could just be a cynic and reckon that after seven years, Coors had got all it could out of the deal and has decided that blaming the law is a little easier than to say that we've had enough and that no-one much in Scotland drinks Carling anyway. (Tennents has 55% of the on trade and over 60% of the off). I can't find figures for Carling.
Mr Miller also took the opportunity to confirm that Molson Coors supports minimum pricing, following some inaccurate press reports that they did not. A spokesman for the Scottish Government said its policies on minimum pricing and the promotion of alcohol were "not mutually exclusive" and its legislation was "not anti-alcohol". So there you have it.
Oh and guess who is sponsoring the Old Firm now? You are way ahead of me aren't you? It's Tennents Lager of course. Tennent's Irish owner C&C said it was confident its approach to sponsorship was in line with government objectives. So there.
My thanks to SoS for this interesting piece. Click the title to go to their report.
