From the Wall Street Journal… “For nearly five years, Russia, the world’s third-largest beer market, has banned the depiction of people in commercials for the brew.

To compensate, beer marketers have used such alternatives as offscreen voices or animated beer bottles to suggest some kind of living presence in their ads. They say these ploys are legitimate ways to skirt the ban.

But amid a new Kremlin-backed clampdown on alcohol abuse, regulators have started to tighten the rules, which are designed to make beer less appealing to young people.

The result: Russia’s noisy offscreen beer drinkers are set to disappear from the airwaves, as are frolicking beer bottles.

As hard liquor such as vodka has become less fashionable among young people, Russia’s beer consumption has more than tripled in the past 15 years, boosted by cheap prices, ready availability and lax regulation. With annual sales estimated at around $17 billion, Russia is now the third-biggest beer market in the world by net consumption, after China and the U.S. Foreign brewers, who control more than 80% of the market, have been the main beneficiaries.

Though Russia’s legal drinking age is 18, beer is often exempted because it isn’t classified as an alcoholic beverage.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124753106188735897.html