Every picture tells a story - Alcohol sponsored anti-alcohol training programme.

Now, let's get back to Fergie and Philip Larkin's poem...

But what's this I'm hearing on the news? Diageo, one of the biggest drinks companies in the world, is giving money to the Department of Health. It will be used to train 10,000 midwives on the harm of alcohol in pregnancy. The training programme will be run by the National Organisation for Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS).

Have you had to read that again? Sadly, it is true. Though tempting, I'm not going to write about the alcohol problems in society. I'm sure views will be strongly expressed in print and on air and we all know the arguments by now. I gave up smoking and alcohol when pregnant, because of the suggested dangers and that was in 1970 and 1973. Most people know and certainly 10,000 midwives do.


What interests me more, is the invidious brainwashing of marketing techniques, including advertising and product placement. There is a certain naivety in some people, who don't think they are influenced at all. If advertising didn't work, why would billions of pounds be spent on it? As long as we have memories, none of us are immune.

In 2007, I gave a presentation at a conference. It was about getting our emotional needs met in childhood and what can happen in adulthood, if we feel that those needs weren't met, whether it's real or perceived. At the end, one of the audience took me aside. She worked for an alcohol dependancy unit.

She was a poacher turned gamekeeper. Her previous work had been with a large drinks company. She told me that she was familiar with the emotional needs I had mentioned. They were the needs that the drinks company attempted to match with a different alcoholic drink and marketed as such. She had taken part in many such planning meetings.

So, alcohol can solve problems of status, achievement, feeling in control, friendship, feeling good enough, competency, attention, security. Of course it can't. Well, not long term it can't, without the strong likelihood of attendant problems. But the images used in marketing, will subtly suggest that it can. Someone told me that they use alcohol to self-medicate. They meant to get some of their missing needs met, except that it may well be turning into self-harm.

When the midwives are doing their Diageo sponsored training, will they have folders, pens, notebooks and other accoutrements with a brand name attached. Probably. Have you ever looked around a GP's surgery and seen the names all over the room's accessories?

Many years ago I was with the family at a Centre Parcs holiday centre about 100 miles from home. On Saturday afternoon I bumped into the practice nurse from my local GP surgery. She was off to a badminton session and was very happy. She told me that she had been attending a training on diabetes on Friday and Saturday that finished at lunchtime. Fortunately Centre Parcs was allowing them to stay on until Sunday, all expenses paid, as they couldn't let the room for just one night. Big Pharma was picking up the bill. "But of course, it doesn't make any difference to our prescribing", she said, No? Then why would it be worth the pharmaceutical company paying the bill?

I attended a seminar run by my training college. It was in a slightly faded and chilly ballroom in a Harrogate hotel. A GP practice manager said at the end, "I wish I could get my GPs here to listen to this, but the trouble is they were at Blenheim Palace last week, they would never come here."

The NHS is short of money. It can't work without the money provided by private industry, especially the pharmaceutical industry. But I suggest that it can strongly influence the people who have to prescribe.

Our brains are full of millions of images taken from our lives. Imagine the brain as the biggest photo album in the world. Now, take a pleasant image and add a smell. Add a sound. Maybe add a taste. Savour the image. Feel the emotion that arises. The memory has taken hold and could be triggered by a similar sight, sound, smell or taste.

I was in the cinema with someone who had never had children. The advertisements before the film were full of ones for cars, as usual. After one such, he said, "That's just silly. Why do they use those stupid voices?" I told him that the voices were from a favourite TV children's cartoon from the 1980s about racing cars. The advert wasn't aimed at 50-60 year olds, it was for 30-40 year olds. Clever marketing.

I am the same age as Twiggy, the 'older' model for Marks and Spencer. Sadly, that's the only similarity. The imagery is still there in her face. The 1960s. Not an official Senior Citizen. Though she is. No wonder M&S still use her. She's worth millions to the company.

The soundtrack behind adverts, smells in supermarkets, use of famous personalities, clever words, carefully chosen images. The list is endless. Match the image to a positive experience the customer has had somewhere in their lives and you may have a sale. It's why nostalgia sells so well. But a purchase bought with expectations arising from a memory may well disappoint. It can't ever be exactly the same.

If not matched to a positive experience, then promise something better for the customer. something that will make them feel better in their community, something that will make them feel better about themselves. One soap company spent many years suggesting that the worst thing you could do for your child was send them to school wearing a shirt that wasn't as white as the child who lived next door. Terrible mother. It became the brand leader.

All manipulation. All mind games. Everybody's mind worth billions of pounds.

But they won't get me. Oh no, I'm emotionally mature. It's pouring with rain. It doesn't feel like June. I need cheering up. Something that makes me think of warm summer evenings.

Now, what shall I have to drink... 


©RitaLeaman2011