# Hard Fizz and the ABAC Case: Three Videos, Three Breaches > One Hard Fizz campaign, three upheld ABAC breaches. The brand pulled the posts and the determination landed anyway. Here is why. Source: https://www.hiaitus.ai/posts/hard-fizz-abac-case-study _Published 2026-07-29_ Three Instagram videos. Three upheld breaches. One ABAC determination still sitting on the public register nearly six years later. In November 2020, Fizzy Mates Pty Ltd posted a run of videos for its Hard Fizz seltzer range. Each featured a bikini-wearing model pouring product over her body or having fruit and product smashed onto her. One showed an entire can poured straight into the model's mouth. Four complaints reached the ABAC Adjudication Panel on 20 and 23 November 2020. The Panel published its determination on 7 December 2020. Three breaches upheld. ## What did the ABAC Panel actually find? The Panel upheld three separate breaches of the ABAC Code from a single campaign concept: - Part 3(a)(i): "showing the entire content of the product being poured into the mouth of the woman and hence showing rapid consumption and implying excessive consumption". - Part 3(b)(iv): "failing to apply available age restriction controls to the Instagram posts". - Part 3(c)(ii): "using the product as a prop to demonstrate sexually provocative behaviour and hence raising a reasonable implication that the consumption or presence of the product may contribute to sexual success". It is worth noting what the Panel did not uphold. Complaints under Part 3(a)(ii), on irresponsible or offensive behaviour, and Part 3(d), on safety, were dismissed. The Panel assesses each clause on its own terms. It does not hand down a blanket verdict on a campaign it dislikes, which is precisely why one concept can survive two tests and fail three others. ## Why did pulling the posts not stop the determination? Fizzy Mates removed the posts as at 23 November 2020, the same day the second wave of complaints arrived. The determination published two weeks later regardless. The Panel addressed this head on. It acknowledged the company "did remove the posts shortly after the complaints were received", then set out the rule that matters: "The rules governing the ABAC Scheme provide that Panel decisions are still made on complaints even when a marketing item is removed prior to the decision." Deleting a post limits further exposure. It does not withdraw the complaint, halt the assessment, or keep the finding off the public register. Nearly six years on, that determination is still one of the first things a search for this brand and this Code returns. ## How does one concept trigger three separate clauses? This is the part marketing teams underestimate. The three findings are not three versions of the same objection. They test different things. Part 3(a) asks what the ad shows about consumption. Part 3(b) asks who could see it, and whether the controls available to you were switched on. Part 3(c) asks what the ad implies the product will do for you. One creative idea, assessed three ways, failed three times. The age-restriction finding is the sharpest lesson in the set, because it had nothing to do with the creative at all. Instagram already offered the control. The account did not apply it. That breach was a settings problem, not a storyboard problem, and it was entirely avoidable at zero cost. ## Has Hard Fizz breached the ABAC Code since? Yes, twice more, and the theme repeats. - 274/21, 14 December 2021: a complaint concerning depictions of 18 to 24 year olds. Dismissed. - 19/23, 28 February 2023: upheld. The Panel found "the reasonable implication of the verbal exchange combined with the party scenes is that excessive consumption will occur or at least it is socially acceptable to drink to intoxication". - 211/24, 23 January 2025: upheld under Part 3(a)(ii) and Part 3(d), over "shoey" marketing collateral and Instagram posts. Three upheld determinations across four years, with consumption at the centre of all three. That is the useful signal here. A single finding is an incident. The same clause family catching a brand in 2020, in 2023 and again in 2025 is a process gap, not bad luck. ## Which other codes apply to the same creative? ABAC is the primary code for alcohol marketing in Australia, but it does not run alone. The AANA Code of Ethics applies to all advertising and sits in parallel, so the same content can be assessed under both at once. ACMA rules layer on for broadcast. A concept cleared against one framework has not been cleared against the others. ## What should alcohol marketers do differently? Move the check earlier. Every finding above was decidable at brief or storyboard stage, before a shoot, a media buy or an ambassador fee. Compliance applied at the end is not a check, it is a hope. Three questions that would have caught this campaign before it ran: - Does anything on screen show or imply rapid or excessive consumption? - Are the platform's age-restriction controls switched on for this account and this post? - Does the ad imply the product contributes to social or sexual success? We put together a short compliance guide for Australian marketing leads in the alcohol sector. It covers the seven breach themes that catch teams out, the Hard Fizz case in full, what a finding costs you beyond the purely financial, and the five questions to ask before publishing. Checked It pre-screens ad creative against the Australian codes, including ABAC and the AANA Code of Ethics, and returns clause-cited findings before legal sign-off rather than after production. Audit your own content for less than a coffee a day at checkedit.ai. Source: ABAC Adjudication Panel Determinations 172, 173, 174 & 176/20, 7 December 2020. abac.org.au/adjudication/172-4-and-176-20/ _FAQ_ ## ABAC breaches, answered. ### What did the ABAC Panel find against Hard Fizz? The ABAC Adjudication Panel upheld Determinations 172, 173, 174 and 176/20 on 7 December 2020 against Fizzy Mates Pty Ltd. Three Instagram videos for Hard Fizz seltzer breached the Code on rapid and implied excessive consumption, absent age-restriction controls, and product used as a prop implying sexual success. ### Does deleting a post stop an ABAC complaint? No. Hard Fizz removed the posts as at 23 November 2020, and the Panel published its determination two weeks later. ABAC Scheme rules provide that Panel decisions are still made even when a marketing item is removed before the decision. Deletion limits exposure; it does not withdraw the finding. ### Can a single ad breach more than one part of the ABAC Code? Yes. One creative concept can trigger several provisions at once. The Hard Fizz videos drew findings under Part 3(a) on consumption, Part 3(b) on placement and audience, and Part 3(c) on success. Each provision is assessed separately, so one idea can produce multiple upheld breaches. ### Do Instagram posts need age-restriction controls under ABAC? Yes. Part 3(b)(iv) governs placement, and the Panel found the Hard Fizz account failed to apply the age-restriction controls the platform already offered. For alcohol brands, switching on available audience gating is treated as a baseline requirement, not an optional extra. ### Does ABAC replace the AANA Code of Ethics? No, they run in parallel. ABAC is the primary code for alcohol marketing in Australia, the AANA Code of Ethics applies to all advertising, and ACMA rules layer on for broadcast. The same piece of creative can be assessed under more than one code at the same time. ### How can marketing teams catch ABAC breaches before publishing? Move the check earlier, to the brief or storyboard stage, before the shoot and the spend. Checked It pre-screens creative against the Australian codes and returns clause-cited findings, so issues surface before legal sign-off rather than after production. Human judgment keeps the final call. Screening alcohol creative before sign-off? Audit your own content for less than a coffee a day at checkedit.ai. - [Try Checked It free](https://www.checkedit.ai)