Responding to what they claim as advertisers’ feedback, Google announced some modifications to the Adwords’ policy on Alcohol related advertisement across Google’s content network. This policy of course was just an expansion of Google Adwords’ policy on advertising beer products which was allowed sometime during the Fall. Now in addition to allowing the advertisements or to be more specific the sale of beer, Google Adwords is now also allowing the advertisement of hard alcohol and other liqueurs targetting the U.S. audience.
But, there are of course some considerations which alcohol advertisers must follow. And this includes:
- advertisers must promote the information about hard alcohol and liqueurs that their websites contain, such as recipes and brand messages
- ads that directly promote the sale of hard alcohol and liqueurs are still not permissible through Google Adwords program
- advertisements for beer may directly promote its sale
The restrictions on advertising direct sales over advertising promotional campaigns for alcohol products may be a bit thin though, so advertisers must carefully make sure that they go beyond such policy. Although I doubt if minor or slight occurence will be avoided, still it would be safe to follow the guidelines strictly.
This is certainly a welcome development for advertisers who should take advantage of the holiday search traffic on Google relating to alcohol and other holiday liquors. This policy currently applies only to U.S.-based advertisers as Google might still be studying the local regulations of other countries.
