Google Say You Can’t Get Drunk On Wine!

I recently commenced with a new Adwords campaign on behalf of a UK client who is looking to break into the gift market in time for Christmas. A small part of what his store sells is an alcoholic range, including wine, spirits, port and champagne.

I have been aware of the Adwords policy on ads relating to alcohol for a little while and thought I would double-check with them regarding advertising wine gifts.

It seems that it is perfectly acceptable to include ‘wine’ in your ad copy, but you must not say ‘alcohol’, ‘whiskey’ or ‘spirits’.

I decided to call the Adwords support team and check to see if ‘port’ is allowed, and apparently it is.

So to summarise, Google, our moral guardians, are happy for us to promote the sales of wine, beer, champagne and fortified wine because they clearly are not dangerous.

So with this in mind, why does the drunken vagrant who is sitting in the park near my office have a brown paper bag containing Tennants Super lager? Maybe he doesn’t realise that drinking that stuff isn’t going to get him drunk!