NDEGWA: WE SHOULD DIVERSIFY OUR ECONOMY AND ADD MORE VALUE
We need to make sure that young people understand the dangers of alcohol misuse from when they are younger rather than when they have already started to engage in drinking. We have a programme called “Smashed” which has been running in Diageo for about nine years. We are going to launch the programme in Nigeria in 2018. We will work with an agency to run this in schools, using drama to educate young people about the dangers of excessive drinking so that they understand what alcohol abuse means from the time they are young and understand the harmful impact this may have. We believe by doing this and doing it in an interesting way, in an environment where they are comfortable, they will respond to the message on the dangers of alcohol misuse.
The second thing we are doing is to look for advocates within youth communities. We recently signed a partnership with the NYSC and we use that platform to recruit responsible drinking ambassadors amongst the Corp members who are then tasked with spreading the message of responsible drinking in their communities and places of primary assignment. These ambassadors will be chosen and trained to influence their colleagues not to engage in alcohol in harmful ways.
You are a large multinational doing business with suppliers, vendors, wholesalers, retailers amongst others. How do you share this message with this group of people? Do you have any programmes targeted at them?
Soon, we will be launching an initiative called Join the Pact. This is a global initiative that Diageo introduced over nine years ago. It is a global initiative for people to make a pledge not to drink and drive. Working with our trade partners and at every touch point where our brands are consumed and enjoyed, this will cut right across all our external stakeholder groups.
We aim to collect 100,000 pledges from Nigerians not to drink and drive. When you drink, don’t drive. When you go out in a group to have fun, designate one of you to drive and that person should not drink. If you are going out alone, arrange for taxi to take you home after you have had something to drink
We understand that one of your global online initiatives, the DRINKiQ, has been refreshed. Can you enlighten us on what DRINKiQ is all about?
Drink IQ is just about increasing the knowledge we have about alcohol The Drink IQ website, www.DRINKiQ.com was first introduced in 2008 when Diageo led the industry in launching a responsible drinking website. Information on questions such as: What should I know about alcohol? How is alcohol harmful to my body? How much alcohol should I drink? Are made available on this website? The website has now been refreshed, it is now much more engaging and more user friendly and consumers can actually teach themselves.
Like they say, ‘charity begins at home’, so our members of staff also have access to it. Very soon, it will be extended to professional bodies and at the end of the day it is about increasing awareness on alcohol.
Following global news, I see that Diageo has launched a new campaign called ‘Drink Positive’, what is this campaign all about?
The advantage of looking at alcohol in a positive way is to recognize that alcohol, if used in moderation is a part of a balanced lifestyle. Therefore, Drink Positive is asking employees to engage consumers in their jobs and personal lives about the positive role that alcohol can play in our lives. For example, I am talking to you as a journalist, this is part of my role to create awareness about responsible drinking to the public through the media. As we go to the motor park for our rallies, that is another way of creating awareness on responsible drinking through various forums. We are saying that consumers should not abuse alcohol, they should drink positively. On one of our internal websites where employees collaborate and communicate, an employee said that every time he sees a behavior that is not positive he will use the knowledge he has to tell the individual to stop misusing alcohol and convince the person to drink positive.
How have the initiatives of Guinness Nigeria rubbed off on the Beer Sectoral Group (BSG), of MAN, to which you belong?
As I said at the beginning, we are part of the Beer Sector Group which comprises of alcohol beverage manufacturers who have come together to drive responsibility of alcohol in society, and drive awareness around responsible drinking. We have a programme that we normally run during the ember months, which is Drive Alcohol Free.
In terms of these initiatives that you have outlined, do you not think it will have a direct impact on your sales?
Our objective is to be the best performing business, but also to be the most trusted and respected. We would not have been in this country for 67 years if we had taken a short cut in the way we drive our sales. The reason why we want responsibility in the way that consumers engage with alcohol is because we know that this is more sustainable, so people can have a balanced lifestyle that incorporates alcohol in their ways of celebrating or enjoying themselves. Abusing alcohol is harmful and we do not want harm in our society. Part of our responsibility is to ensure that there is increased awareness of the dangers of alcohol misuse and how to reduce related harm. And where we have carried out a number of these initiatives we have recorded a reduction in the incidences of abuse. This means that a lot of the work we have done around the “don’t drink and drive” initiative has had impact. So the level of awareness is much higher. It is like safety, when people are more aware of the need to stay safe, they wear seat belts. They know that when you are in the car and if we do not wear seat belt, you are likely to be injured if an accident occurs.
We believe that we will create a better society if we have a better understanding about alcohol use and its role in a balanced lifestyle. That is why it is not in conflict with our commercial interest. In fact, it supports our ability to be in business because we will be a more respected organisation if we are seen to be responsible.