Turkey's Liquor Market at Risk

The latest ad for Turkey’s Efes beer features an unmarked brown bottle and this cryptic message: “Even if we don’t see each other, we’ll know.” The slogan refers to a new law that not only bans alcohol ads but would also stop TV viewers from watching Homer Simpson enjoy a Duff beer in Moe’s Tavern, as depictions of drinking on television programs are to be blurred out.

London-based distiller Diageo, which two years ago paid $2.1 billion for Mey Icki, a maker of the Turkish national drink, raki, called the law “disappointing” in an e-mail. Yeni Raki, another producer of the anise-flavored liquor, recently ran a newspaper ad showing a hand shaking a glass of the drink with the words “Ads are over. Excuse us.” The country’s winemakers have published ads—with text in the shape of a wine bottle—condemning the curbs on alcohol. Brewer Efes canceled a music festival in Istanbul and shut its website, something other producers are preparing to do.