Watch Neil Patrick Harris try sell Heineken Light without drinking it

You’d think that one of the best things about being a spokesperson for a product is that you get to enjoy that product, especially in the advert. I mean that’s the point, right? As Neil Patrick Harris finds out in the latest spot for Heineken Light however, that isn’t always the case.

In the ad, Harris struggles to come to grips with a set of arcane advertising rules that stop him from consuming the beer during the commercial.

Presumably, the ad is not intended for the US, because as Adweek notes that country’s government does not limit alcohol advertising at all.

Indeed, even the collective alcohol industry is okay with showing drinking, as long as it’s not done very quickly or to excess. According to the Beer Institute’s voluntary guidelines:

“Although beer advertising and marketing materials may show beer being consumed (where permitted by media standards), advertising and marketing materials should not depict situations where beer is being consumed rapidly, excessively, involuntarily, as part of a drinking game, or as a result of a dare.”

Still, it’s a pretty cool ad with Harris pretty much making the scenario.