Editorial: Lambrini is unlucky but tough laws are needed.

Lambrini is an alcohol brand whose advertising is always likely to attract a disproportionate amount of scrutiny by watchdogs.

For one thing, its advertisng is targeted slap bang at young women, a social group deemed to be particularly prone to binge-drinking. For another, and this is hard to put tactfully, its consumers are not the most sophisticated.

As David Bell, the chief executive of Cheethambell JWT, Lambrini's agency, once declared: 'A Lambrini girl probably doesn't know what the word patronising means.'

Not surprisingly, Lambrini ads and their smutty innuendo have been closely watched by the Advertising Standards Authority. Now Halewood International, which produces Lambrini, has been left fuming over the ASA's demand for amendments to an ad featuring three young girls winning a hunky male model in a fairground. Halewood is perhaps entitled to feel a bit miffed over what seems like an over-zealous interpretation of newly tightened rules, which ban any connection in alcohol ads between drink and sexual conquest.

Nevertheless, it is understandable, given the pressure the ASA is under from Ofcom and the Government to keep alcohol ...