Bass to Redo Trendy Alco-Pop Amid Worry Drinks Lure Teens
By Ernest BeckStaff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
LONDON -- Bass PLC, the leading U.K. maker of controversial low-alcohol-content drinks, announced it is overhauling its top-selling brand amid continuing public and government concern that the beverages promote teen alcohol abuse.
Bass said its Hooper's Hooch brand of alco-pop, as the drinks are known, will be reformulated with a lower sugar content, and the label will be redesigned with a more "serious" typeface and a darker background. Stylized fruit images will be removed, to make the drink "unambiguously adult," according to the company.
While Bass denies that Hooper's Hooch is targeted to underage drinkers, as British antialcohol groups have charged, a company spokesman said there had been a public perception that this was true. "We are sensitive to public perceptions, and so we want to avoid all confusion," Stuart Cain explained.
The relaunch will begin next month and will cost 8 million pounds ($12.7 million), including a new advertising campaign.
In May, Bass launched Hooper's Hooch in the U.S., using a cartoon lemon character on the label that had been removed from the product in Britain. That removal came after complaints that the cartoon character would appeal to consumers under age 18 -- the U.K.'s legal drinking age. Bass said it has no plans to change the U.S. labeling.