Girls Gone Wild

In the days leading up to Valentine's Day, many major magazines, newspapers, and web sites participated in a publicity blitz to offer helpful hints to hapless men regarding the best gifts to buy the woman in their lives. Chocolates, flowers, and jewelry still dominate most lists, but today's Wall Street Journal offered something else she craves that I would have never considered.

Booze.

Apparently, the United States and Great Britain have experienced a dramatic upsurge in heavy drinking by women--a 33 percent increase among those between the drinking age and age 24 over the last half decade. The paper offers this example of one woman's typical intake after a night out with her girl friends on a Friday night in London:

She says she drank a bottle of red wine, two cocktails, a shot of vodka and a glass of Baileys Irish cream.

It was a typical night out, says the 26-year-old civil servant, who says many of her friends drink as heavily as she does. "That's quite a lot. But normally I'm absolutely fine the next day," she says. "It's just what we do."

Or consider the exploits of a twenty three year old insurance broker, who offered this justification for a typical night involving four or five bottles of Smirnoff Ice coupled with seven or eight drinks at the local pub--"Sometimes we overdo it, but it's what we do to have fun."

The article is filled with those pleasantly daft moments of unintended humor. British police report an exponential leap in disorderly conduct among women, including late night catfights over taxi cabs. British comedy clubs requiring "behavior bonds" because of an influx of rowdy bachelorette parties. A Manhattan editorial assistant insisting that drinking games just level the playing field between men and women competiting for cash prizes ("We can play football or baseball with guys, but we aren't going to be at the same level competitively. Playing a drinking game, it's more skill and not brawn.")

This competitive quest by women to compete with men through binge drinking suggests feminism gone awry (or maybe a rye.) Medical evidence indicates that women playing a drinking game with men are demonstrating stupidity, not skill.

A 2002 TIME magazine article on the rise of female drinking notes that women usually get drunk faster than men, because their bodies tend to have a higher ratio of fat to water, which means the alcohol is less diluted when it enters the blood stream. Most women also possess lower levels of a key enzyme designed to break down alcohol. Worst of all, women tend to develop liver disease more than a decade faster than men, even if they drink much less per day.

The Wall Street Journal lays part of the blame on advertising and other marketing activities by alcohol producers eager to take advantage of this new growing market, such as Anheuser-Busch bribing the editors of top woman's magazines with free manicures and facials just for sampling a new series of fizzy, alcoholic fruit drinks.

However, a stronger urge than advertising may be the root cause of this behavior. A 20 year survey by University of North Dakota professor Sharon Wilsnack determined that 60 percent of female drinkers feel less inhibited about sex. Dr. Wilsnack's conclusion--women drink to get in the party mood. Or as one Mount Holyoke student told TIME, "We are really shy when we go out. We are not confident. But if we drink, we put ourselves out there."

So if you really love that woman of yours, maybe chocolate is the best approach for Valentine's Day, unless it's a chocolate martini.

Time's Up

With enough repetition, an old advertising slogan can become a source of comfort. Campbell Soup? Why, it's mmm, mmm, good. Oops. Did you accidentally spill that soup and need to catch the drip before it hits the floor. No problem. Reach for that Bounty paper towel, since it's the quicker picker upper. And don't forget to finish that cup of Maxwell House Coffee, since, of course, it's good to the last drop.

For twenty years, we could take comfort that if we reached into our wallet and produced a Visa card, we knew it would be accepted, since it's everywhere you want to be. But when the Olympics start in the next few days, this old tagline will be permanently retired, uncermoniously replaced with a new slogan, "Life takes Visa."

The folks from Visa say the old tagline no longer reflects the broad spectrum of credit cards services they now offer, such as commercial credit cards and high tech cards that carry radio frequencies. The real reason might lie closer to the fact that Visa recently dumped its old ad agency, BBDO, and replaced it with TBWA\Chiat\Day, which of course wishes to establish its own identify for its new client.

The old tag line carries a lot of brand equity. You would think that Visa and TBWA spent a lot of time studying the ramifications of their decision, and conducted hours and hours of research to make sure they came up with the right substitute.

Adweek must have had the same thought in mind. It asked Visa Chief Marketing Officer Susanne Lyons to describe the decision making process. Here's what she said, according to the magazine:

"The 'Life takes Visa' tag was chosen by TBWA\C\D creative chief Lee Clow," Lyons said. "He walked into a room in his sandals and shorts where we had hundreds of taglines posted all over. He pointed to 'Life takes Visa' and said, 'That's a good one.'"

I can only wish Visa and TBWA\C\D a lot of luck. Ingrained messages can be difficult to dislodge. When the good people of Boston finally tore down the Boston Garden, and replaced it with a new arena, Fleet Bank bought the naming rights, and called the building the Fleet Center. Folks in Boston still kept calling it the GAHDEN anyway, which may be why when Fleet merged with Bank of America, and the naming rights became available to the highest bidder, TD Banknorth showed the good sense of calling the place the TD Banknorth Garden.

All things must pass eventually. For instance, last month, Western Union finally retired the telegram, a communications fixture for more than 150 years, after sending out only 20,000 of these hand delivered messages last year. It will focus its attention on the more lucrative money transfer business instead.

Western Union will retain its old tagline, though. It's still the fastest way to send money. If Visa's new slogan works, customers will continue to rely on the card as the fastest way to spend money.