Objective: Some claims on alcohol labels highlight virtuous aspects of brands or products, including in health-, eco-, and cause-oriented domains (including charity partnerships, or ethical or humanitarian certifications). This virtue marketing may create a 'halo' whereby consumers generalise from specific attributes to a more favourable overall appraisal of the product, brand, or even alcohol or the alcohol industry in general. This study aims to describe the prevalence of and trends over time in virtue marketing on the packaging of new alcohol (including lower and zero alcohol) products on the Australian market.
Method: Records of N=4,024 new alcohol products released in Australia between 2013 and 2023 were extracted from Mintel Global New Products Database. Health-, eco-, and cause-oriented claims on packaging were summarised across product types and time, and co-occurrence between claims was assessed.
Results: Virtue marketing appeared on 36.5% of new alcohol products, of which health-oriented claims were most common (32.5%), followed by eco- (6.3%) and cause-oriented claims (2.0%). The prevalence of each claim category and virtue marketing overall significantly increased over time (each p<.001) and varied by product type. New alcohol products displayed as many as eight different types of claims and all claims tended to co-occur with at least two others.
Conclusions: Virtue marketing is prevalent on new alcohol products in Australia and has recently increased. While product packaging can provide useful consumer information, health-, eco-, and cause-oriented claims may exploit consumers' motivation to make healthy, sustainable, and socially responsible choices despite alcohol being detrimental in these areas.
Keywords: alcohol industry; alcohol labelling; alcohol marketing; corporate social responsibility; virtue signalling.