Underage Prevention Programs

Working with Distributors and Retailers 

Reducing underage drinking is a complex societal challenge because it involves a host of factors that interact with each other, often in unforeseen ways. Our strategy for helping reduce underage drinking is to carefully manage the factors that are within our control and work with others to address those that are not. The factors within our control include the ways we advertise and market our products and our relationship with our distribution partners who provide point-of-sale materials to retailers. The factors outside our control are many and varied, so we select and support strong partners with proven track records for educating and informing young people and their parents.

Distributors and retailers also represent important allies in the effort to help reduce underage drinking. We partner with distributors to educate retailers, inform consumers and bring solutions to communities. In 2010 we expanded our Respect 21 Responsible Retailing Program to five new communities: Lubbock, Texas; Bloomington/Normal, Illinois; Joliet, Illinois; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Fort Myers, Florida. We developed the program with Brandeis University and the Responsible Retailing Forum to help communities raise awareness and guide retailers in improving practices to prevent underage access to alcohol. A typical Respect 21 program runs in a community for twelve months. Since its inception more than 20 communities and 917 retailers around the U.S. have benefited from Respect 21.

The Respect 21 approach is based on recognition that underage drinking is a problem that can be managed, not “solved,” and that effective management combines the efforts of retailers, families and communities. We provide our distributors with point-of-sale materials and a guide to responsible retailing practices, which they place with retail accounts in Respect 21 communities. The retailers subsequently are visited by “mystery shoppers” who test the retailers’ effectiveness in limiting underage access to alcohol. Results of these visits are presented confidentially to the retailer. MillerCoors receives an aggregate report for each community at the conclusion of the program.

Sample results by community for 2010 and 2009 are shown to the left.