Diageo’s Alcohol Chocolates in Mexico: Irresponsible Marketing in the Candy Aisle

In a concerning example of potentially irresponsible marketing, Diageo, the parent company of Johnnie Walker, and chocolate producer Turin are reportedly selling Johnnie Walker-branded chocolates in Mexican supermarkets.  These chocolates contain 2% alcohol but are available for purchase by anyone, including children. By blending alcohol branding with everyday products like chocolate, Diageo and Turin are normalizing alcohol in settings where young people are easily exposed.

These chocolates, strategically placed in supermarkets without age restrictions, leverage surrogate marketing — embedding the Johnnie Walker brand in a product that appears harmless. This tactic encourages early familiarity with alcohol branding, presenting it as an ordinary treat and making drinking seem acceptable, even desirable, to young audiences.

Diageo and Turin’s marketing strategy takes advantage of Mexico’s lack of regulation around alcohol-infused products, exploiting a loophole that allows alcohol to be sold in a format that appeals directly to youth. Such products reinforce the need for effective regulatory action to prevent the alcohol industry from targeting young people through disguised marketing.

Promotion, or any marketing strategies, is Big Alcohol’s activity to drive alcohol availability and acceptability, to perpetuate the alcohol norm, and to place alcohol at the center of people’s thoughts and preferences, communities’ practices, and societies’ customs. The focus of this DUBIOUS FIVE strategy is the people and their beliefs about alcohol products, the public and their attitudes about and behavior around alcohol products, and the consumers and how much, how often they buy and consume alcohol brands.

This case was brought to Big Alcohol Exposed by a concerned member of the public, underscoring the importance of community awareness in identifying industry misconduct. If you witness irresponsible or misleading marketing practices by the alcohol industry, you too can report them to Big Alcohol Exposed to help call attention to unethical tactics and protect public health.

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