So it looks like the global liquor industry fully expects a ban on alcohol advertizing if yesterday’s How to Spend it supplement in the Weekend FT is any measure. Not a single ad from a company any health Nazi would ban. Just the usual glossies for ugly watches and an incredible five black bling pages for the Corinthia Hotel, which only opens in London next month.

The lead story is on Hermès and they’ll be popping the bubbly on the Rue de Sèvres tomorrow at the public humiliation of Bernard Arnault whose LVMH conglomerate has snarfed up 20.2% of the icon brand. For the self-styled “grande of dame luxury”, Lucia van der Post (daughter of that big SA fibber Sir Laurens) rather puts her dainty Manolo Blahnik shod foot in it in the final paragraph of a breathless Homage à Hermès.

Of the various brands within LVMH, Bernie opines “We respect all their different cultures and do our best to nurture them.” La Lucia continues “here he points to Dior, where John Galliano has been supported and allowed a very free hand.” Oops, Bernie had fired him five days before for his very freely expressed admiration for the
original health Nazi, Adolf Hitler.

John Galliano

So let’s see how Wanted, Business Day’s local knock-off of How to Spend it, reacts to global liquor brands shifting their ad-spend to below the line projects and social media.