The problem with some people is that when they aren’t drunk they’re sober – William Butler Yeats
I don’t know how nobody has mentioned this before, and perhaps this is just a sober moment of madness brought on by the Irish Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell.
A question suddenly flickered across my mind, would Hugh MacLeod be able to give free wine away to Irish bloggers if he was living in Ireland? <sarcasm>The fun police</sarcasm> are cracking down on our drinking enjoyment in Ireland these days, with all sorts of restrictions on drink offers. Surely the same the restrictions would apply to MacLeod’s initiative.
This got me thinking, what happens when the next <sarcasm>bright spark</sarcasm> starts up their own freebie offer. I was offered an advance copy of a PR book via pdf recently (shame the link had expired by the time I got round to reading it), but what if this was an impotence blog and a drugs company wanted me to try Viagra 2.0 for free?
It’s funny to think that at some stage we’re going to move past think about the ethical and legal issues surrounding bloggers accepting freebies, and move onto discussing the same issues when discussing whether an organisation will be able able to give out freebies.
PS why did the Sunday Tribune Blogosphere column skip over the offer completely?
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The fact that’s it’s not a promotion to get you into a pub and get wasted probably means it’s ok. I don’t see how it’s different than supermarkets here doing special offers on wine – like by 3 bottles get 1 free deals, or ‘Special Offer Wine of the Week’. Retail and Pub laws are probably different.
And the Tribune missed it because it’s a load of crap!
Yeah, but I’d say that you probably couldn’t get away with giving away free wine. Imagine if your local off-license was giving away free wine, I’d say that would go down a storm with Minister MacDowell
Back to my other example though of medical drugs though. I think it’s an espeicially valid one to think about. As it currently stands, drug companies pith their products to doctors, but what if they reversed this trend and created a reverse demand model with patients telling their doctors about this drug, and asking him why isn’t he prescribing it. It’d also be a handy way to create case studies for themselves.
Of course when you consider this, it sounds like a highly dubious practice and I think it’s an issue that will come to the fore in the coming years.
It’s entirely possible that it’d fall under the current silly drinks promotion laws, which cover more than just pubs; college societies, for instance, are prohibited from doing similar.