Sampling for beer, wine and spirits
Nobody chooses a beer from an advertisement. They choose it because it was in the chilly bin at a barbecue. The rules here change the brief before they change the creative.
Occasion beats message in this category
Alcohol is bought for an occasion rather than for a benefit. A shopper standing in front of the chiller is picking something for a barbecue, a birthday, a Friday, or a table of people they want to impress slightly. That is a social decision, and social decisions are made by watching other people.
Which makes customer content unusually well suited to the category and unusually constrained. New Zealand's Advertising Standards Authority Alcohol Code sets requirements that reach right back into who can be recruited, not just what they can say.
The practical consequence is that an open community call is not available here. Recruitment has to be built for the code from the first day of planning, which is why we raise it in the first conversation rather than at approval.
Compliance first, then creative.
The order matters. Every step below is shaped by the code rather than adjusted for it afterwards.
Brief and check
Product, occasion and outcome, assessed against the Alcohol Code before recruitment opens.
Closed recruitment
No open call. Participants are matched from the community and must be at least 25 and appear 25.
Buy
They buy it at a supermarket or a licensed store. Purchase verified against the content.
Post, age-gated
Content is published to audiences age-gated to 18 plus, or demonstrably 80% or more adult.
Paid and report
Paid support runs under the same audience restrictions, and the report says so.
Where alcohol is sold here.
New Zealand supermarket alcohol licences cover beer and wine only, so the channel plan changes depending on what you make.
New World, PAK'nSAVE
Beer and wine, the main grocery route to the chiller
Woolworths NZ
Beer and wine alongside the weekly shop
Liquorland
Foodstuffs-owned specialist banner
Independent liquor stores
Spirits, craft and specialist ranges
On-premise
Bars, restaurants and events, where the occasion is already happening
Brand direct
Cellar door, subscription and direct to consumer
The Alcohol Code changes the brief.
Under the Advertising Standards Authority Alcohol Code, creators appearing in alcohol advertising must be at least 25 years old and must appear at least 25. Audiences must be age-gated to 18 plus, or shown to be 80% or more adult.
Neither of those is a box ticked at approval. Both determine who can be recruited and where the content can be published, which is why the campaign is designed around them from the start.
- Creators are 25 and over. And must appear 25 or over, which is a separate judgement from their date of birth.
- Audiences are age-gated. 18 plus, or demonstrably 80% or more adult, on organic and paid alike.
- No open community call. Recruitment is closed and matched, because an open call cannot control who responds.
- The advertising label applies. Ad, Advert or Advertisement at first interaction, in addition to everything above.
Alcohol, counted.
One campaign, labelled by the market it ran in, with the New Zealand compliance note attached.
Heineken Sol
Sol had distribution but no momentum. Real customers put it into their own summer occasions, and the content arrived faster than a shoot could have been booked. Run in New Zealand, the same campaign would need closed recruitment and age-gated audiences from the start.
- 273 pieces of content in 48 hours
- 482 verified trials
- 3.15x return in four days
Kiwicare Weed Weapon
Not an alcohol brand. Included because it is the New Zealand read on how customer content performs against a brand's own paid advertising.
- 2.78% click-through on customer content, against 1.07% on brand paid ads
- NZ$0.20 cost per click
Source: Kiwicare Campaign Report, January 2026.
What alcohol brands ask us.
Can you run an open call for participants?
No. The Alcohol Code requires creators to be at least 25 and to appear 25, and an open call cannot control who responds. Recruitment is closed and matched from the community instead.
How are audiences age-gated?
Organic and paid audiences are restricted to 18 plus, or shown to be 80% or more adult, using the platforms' own controls. The report states which was used.
Can content show people drinking?
Within the code, and within the brief. What the code is strict about is who appears, who sees it, and any suggestion that alcohol contributes to social or personal success.
Does this work for a new SKU rather than an established brand?
Yes. The Sol campaign in South Africa was exactly that: a product on shelf that nobody was picking up, until real customers put it in the middle of their own occasions.