The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau recently unveiled new guidelines for how wineries, distilleries and breweries can market themselves and their products on social media, making the formal distinction that all activity on social media for such businesses is a form of advertising and thus subject to oversight.
[caption id="attachment_77309" align="alignright" width="372"] Jay Behmke, Rick Van Duzer, Nick Donovan[/caption]
While the decision didn't surprise legal experts or most businesses already using such platforms for promotion, the new guidelines do mean that alcohol-producing businesses -- especially smaller, startup companies -- should take careful note to make sure they are in compliance to avoid potential fines for errant activity, attorneys in the North Bay said.
"What they're saying now is all social media is advertising. That's the fundamental decision, and so then you need to know what the regulations are," said Jay Behmke, a partner at Santa Rosa-based Carle, Mackie, Power & Ross who focuses on alcoholic beverage law.
[poll id="81"]Have more to say? Leave your thoughts in the Comments section below.
Under the new guidelines, released in May, social media is defined as any "service, platform, or site where users communicate and share media, such as pictures, videos, music, and blogs with other users," according to the industry circular. That broad definition includes sites like YouTube, any form of blog and also "microblogs" such as Twitter or Tumblr and mobile applications.
Although the TTB did acknowledge that disclosures would be difficult on outlets with limited character counts, it simultaneously said, "character limitations have no effect on the application of regulations regarding prohibited practices or statements ... thus, they must be followed for each mircoblog post."
Rick Van Duzer, who focuses on the wine industry among others for Farella Braun + Martel in St. Helena and San Francisco, said the conflicting message on microblogs would probably cause wineries to simply avoid such mediums altogether.
"They want to be thinking about whether or not they want to use those tools in their marketing," Mr. Van Duzer said, adding that enforcement of the provision is not yet clear either. "I don't think it's going to be possible to comply with it if you've got to have the disclosure information in every blog post. You may see people retreating from that type of media because it's so hard to comply."
With the expanded definition of what mediums constitute advertising, alcohol-producing companies must provide some form of disclosure to users that the product is geared specifically toward adults, while also having to take reasonable measures attempting to ensure most web visitors are 21 years of age and up.
For large-scale businesses with advanced marketing practices, the new rules probably don't present much of a difference, but smaller, boutique wineries, brewers and distillers, if not cognizant of the changes, could easily get tripped up for seemingly minor discretions, according to Nick Donovan, an attorney with Napa-based Gaw Van Male who focuses on the wine industry.
"My first reaction to all of this is there is just a really big difference between established wineries that know this and were probably already doing this, versus (those with) smaller labels," Mr. Donovan said. "Aside from making wine, which is expensive, (smaller wineries) are not thinking of putting ads up, but they do all want to set up a Facebook page. They're the ones who would get tripped up by this, by not appreciating that there are federal rules."
