News

If cheeky marketers have their way, children will be trading their sippy cups for champagne flutes.

A non-alcoholic, bubbly "kid's party drink" called Robby Bubble, with its cartoon-festooned champagne-style bottle complete with foil-wrapped top, is selling for $3.99 a pop in some Alberta liquor stores.

Now, Mothers Against Drunk Driving has condemned the sale of Robby Bubble, saying it sends the wrong message to children.

The label reads "Party! Party!" and the company's kid-friendly website repeats "celebrate like the grown-ups!" as a mantra for mini-me partiers.

But like Popeye Candy Cigarettes, which changed its name in 1992 to Popeye Candy Sticks, kiddie champagne is poised to become a lightning rod for health and anti-drinking activists who see products like Robby Bubble as gateways to unhealthy behaviour.

The Danish product, available in peach, berry and strawberry "fruit-juice soft drink" flavours, joins one by Disney, which has come under fire recently for its release of Partyfizz, a similar drink.

Selling Robby Bubble alongside the real deal is especially bold, says Marketing Magazine managing editor Paul Ferriss.

"It blurs the line between what's acceptable for kids and what's acceptable for adults," he says. "They're treating kids the same way as their parents and recognizing kids are growing up faster then they used to."

This, of course, will be reinforced at home, Mr. Ferriss says. "Kids see adults with those things - a drink that comes in a big green bottle that gets poured in a special glass. They think, 'Why can't I have some of that?' "

Where marketers see an opportunity to push the envelope, activists see dangerous modelling behaviour.

"If it's something only in liquor stores right now, maybe it is something they're testing out and seeing what kind of reaction they get to it," Mr. Ferriss says. "It's not necessarily a bad thing, but if they've upset people like MADD, then it might be a strategy they want to reconsider."