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Intoxicating Brands: Alcohol
Advertising and Youth
David Jernigan and Jennifer Wedeking
Multinational Monitor (via RedOrbit)
August 9,
2008
PEOPLE WERE DRINKING ALCOHOL
long before the alcohol industry hooked up with Madison
Avenue, but the beer, wine and liquor companies clearly
believe advertising affects consumption patterns.
Alcohol companies spend close to $2 billion every year
advertising in the United States alone. From 2001 to
2007, they aired more than 2 million television ads and
published more than 20,000 magazine advertisements.
Such heavy advertising inevitably leads to heavy youth
exposure. That so much of the industry's advertising is
aired on programming, or published in magazines, with
large youth audiences makes this problem much worse.
From 2001 to 2007, youth exposure to alcohol product
advertising on television rose by 38 percent. The
average number of television advertisements seen in a
year by youth increased from 216 to 301.
In 2007, approximately one out of every five alcohol
product advertisements on television was on programming
that youth ages 12 to 20 were more likely per capita to
see than adults of the legal drinking age. Almost all of
them were on cable television, where distilled spirits
companies in particular have dramatically increased
their alcohol advertising in the past seven years. This
large and increasing TV exposure offset reductions in
magazine exposure over the same time period.
The data comes from researchers with the Center on
Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University (CAMY)
and Virtual Media Resources (VMR) of Natick,
Massachusetts, who analyzed the placements of 2,033,931
alcohol product advertisements that aired on television
between 2001 and 2007, and 19,466 alcohol advertisements
placed in national magazines between 2001 and 2006.
All of this advertising - and other industry marketing
strategies - matters. Heavier youth exposure to
advertising leads to more alcohol consumption,
researchers have found. Alcohol use and abuse takes a
serious, direct toll on youth in deaths, injuries,
academic performance and emotional well-being, and
earlier and heavier drinking sets up kids for worse
health outcomes later in life.
FUELING UNDERAGE DRINKING
Alcohol is the leading drug problem among young people.
According to "Monitoring the Future," the federal
government's annual survey of drug use among eighth-,
10th- and 12th-graders, more young people drink alcohol
than smoke cigarettes or use illegal drugs. The U.S.
Surgeon General estimates that approximately 5,000
people under age 21 die from alcohol-related injuries
involving underage drinking each year.
Despite significant efforts to reduce youth access to
alcohol, binge drinking among youth remains stubbornly
high. In 2006, 7.2 million youth under age 21 reported
binge drinking (consuming five or more drinks at a
sitting, usually defined as within two hours) within the
past month.
The earlier young people start drinking, the worse the
consequences. People who start drinking before age 15
are four times more likely to become dependent on
alcohol later in life than those who wait to drink until
they are 21. Those who drink heavily in adolescence and
early adulthood are more likely to develop a metabolic
profile that puts them at greater risk of cardiovascular
problems later in life, whether or not they continue
drinking.
"Too many Americans consider underage drinking a rite of
passage to adulthood," says former Acting Surgeon
General Kenneth Moritsugu. "Research shows that young
people who start drinking before the age of 15 are five
times more likely to have alcohol-related problems later
in life. New research also indicates that alcohol may
harm the developing adolescent brain. The availability
of this research provides more reasons than ever before
for parents and other adults to protect the health and
safely of our nation's children."
There is compelling evidence that exposure to alcohol
advertising and marketing increases the likelihood of
underage drinking. Since 2001, at least seven
peerreviewed, federally funded, long-term studies have
found that young people with greater exposure to alcohol
marketing - including on television, in magazines, on
the radio, on billboards or other outdoor signage, or
via instore beer displays, beer concessions, or
ownership of beer promotional items or branded
merchandise - are more likely to start drinking than
their peers.
Econometric analysis based on data from youth drinking
surveys has estimated that a 28 percent reduction in
alcohol advertising would reduce the percentage of
adolescents who drank in the last month by 4 to 16
percent. The percentage engaging in binge drinking
monthly would fall by 8 to 33 percent.
ALCOHOL ADVERTISING TSUNAMI
Between 2001 and 2007, alcohol companies spent $6.6
billion to place more than 2 million alcohol product
advertisements on television. From 2001 to 2006, they
spent $2 billion to place 19,466 alcohol product
advertisements in national magazines.
Because the four broadcast networks - NBC, CBS, ABC and
FOX - have a voluntary ban on distilled spirits
advertising on television, beer companies have
traditionally dominated spending on television. However,
since 2001, distilled spirits marketers have driven a
dramatic increase in alcohol advertising on cable
television.
Advertising placements, spending and youth exposure have
all grown on television since 2001, while placements and
youth exposure have declined in magazines. The number of
magazine advertisements placed by alcohol companies fell
by 22 percent from 2001 to 2006. Spending in magazines
peaked at $361 million in 2004 but fell to $331 million
in 2006. Youth, young adult and adult exposure to this
advertising fell by 50 percent, 33 percent and 28
percent respectively over the six-year period. Overall,
the shift from magazines to television means that there
has been little change in overall youth exposure to
alcohol advertising across the two media since 2001.
EXPOSING KIDS
In 2003, trade associations for beer and distilled
spirits companies adopted, as part of their
self-regulatory codes of good marketing practice, a 30
percent maximum for underage audiences of their
advertising (the wine industry had moved to 30 percent
in 2000). Under this standard, alcohol companies should
not advertise on programs with an audience that is more
than 30 percent underage.
In the same year that the beer and spirits industries
adopted the 30 percent standard, the National Research
Council and Institute of Medicine recommended that
alcohol companies move toward a proportional 15 percent
maximum for youth audiences of alcohol advertising,
since 12- to 20-year-olds are roughly 15 percent of the
general population. In 2006, 20 state attorneys general
echoed that call, followed by the U.S. Surgeon General
in 2007.
Even a 15 percent standard would leave large numbers of
kids exposed to alcohol ads. A program with high ratings
but a relatively lower proportion of youth viewers may
still reach more kids than a program with a higher
proportion of youth viewers but a smaller overall
audience.
Since adopting the 30 percent standard in 2003, alcohol
companies have made steady progress toward compliance,
both in magazines and on television. In 2001, 11 percent
of alcohol product advertisements in magazines were in
publications with youth readership greater than 30
percent. By 2006, only 3 percent of alcohol product
advertisements in magazines were in publications with
youth readerships greater than 30 percent.
On television, in 2001, 11 percent of alcohol product
advertisements were on television programming with youth
audiences greater than 30 percent. By 2007, 6 percent of
alcohol product advertisements were on television
programming with youth audiences greater than 30
percent.
However, the decline in placements on television
programming with youth audiences greater than 30 percent
has been accompanied by increases in the percent of
youth exposure coming from overexposing placements - ads
on programs with 15 to 30 percent youth viewership.
Youth overexposure occurs when advertising is placed on
programming or in publications with youth audiences that
are out of proportion to their presence in the
population. Cable generated 95 percent of youth
overexposure to alcohol advertising on television in
2007.
The result is that the share of youth exposure to
alcohol advertising coming from advertisements on
television programming that youth are more likely per
capita to watch than adults has never been higher since
CAMY began its monitoring in 2001. More than 40 percent
of total youth exposure to alcohol ads on TV comes from
programs where 12- to 20-year-olds are more than 15
percent of the audience.
THE OVEREXPOSERS
Not all alcohol brands advertise equally. A relative
handful of brands are responsible for nearly half of all
youth overexposure to alcohol ads.
In magazines in 2006, 21 alcohol brands (out of a total
of 229 alcohol brands advertising in magazines) were
responsible for 44 percent of youth exposure and 49
percent of youth overexposure, but only 33 percent of
adult exposure to alcohol product advertising.
On television in 2006, 22 alcohol brands (out of a total
of 142 alcohol brands advertising on television)
provided 36 percent of youth exposure and 48 percent of
youth overexposure but only 30 percent of adult exposure
to alcohol product advertising. Clearly some brands do
better than others at avoiding youth overexposure. Using
2007 television data, CAMY developed a method for
identifying which brands did best overall both in
complying with the industry's 30 percent threshold and
in avoiding youth overexposure to alcohol advertising.
Eliminating the smallest brands to avoid skewing the
results, 11 brands stood out as the worst performers and
seven brands emerged as best.
The worst performers were: Miller Lite, Corona Extra
Beer, Coors Light, Hennessy Cognacs, Guinness Beers,
Samuel Adams Beers, Bud Light, Smirnoff Vodkas,
Disaronno Originale Amaretto, Miller Chill and multiple
brands from Mike's Beverages.
The best performers by the CAMY measure were: Michelob
Beer, Santa Margharita Pinot Grigio, Korbel California
Champagnes, Arbor Mist Wines, Rolling Rock Beer,
Michelob Ultra Light Beer and Kahlua Hazelnut.
NOT TOO MUCH RESPONSIBILITY
In addition to placing product advertising on
television, some alcohol companies also place
"responsibility" advertisements, which seek to deliver
messages about underage drinking or about drinking
safely (i.e., in moderation, not in combination with
driving, and so on).
From 2001 to 2007, alcohol companies spent 43 times as
much money to place 28 times as many product
advertisements as "responsibility" messages.
Placement of this kind of advertising varies by company.
Diageo, the world's largest distilled spirits company
and marketer of Smirnoff Vodkas and Captain Morgan Rums,
spent nearly 19 percent of its television advertising
dollars on "responsibility" messages from 2001 to 2007.
In contrast, Anheuser-Busch, producer of Budweiser and
Bud Light and the largest alcohol advertiser on
television, spent 1 percent of its budget on these
messages (and in total dollars, less than a quarter of
what Diageo spent).
Youth and adult exposure to the alcohol industry's
"responsibility" messages has consistently been
overwhelmed by the amount of alcohol product advertising
seen by each group each year. From 2001 to 2007, youth
ages 12 to 20 were 22 times more likely to see a product
advertisement for alcohol than an alcohol-industry-
funded "responsibility" message. Adults were 26 times
more likely to see an alcohol product advertisement than
an alcohol industry- funded "responsibility" message.
THE PATH TO REFORM
Over the last decade, the alcohol industry has tightened
and clarified its self-regulatory standards and review
procedures. However, although alcohol industry
compliance with the voluntary 30 percent maximum for
youth audiences of alcohol advertising has been good,
this threshold has not been effective in reducing youth
exposure to alcohol advertising. Youth exposure to
alcohol advertising in magazines has fallen, but this
has been counteracted by the huge increase in alcohol
advertising on television, especially in distilled
spirits advertising on cable television.
During this same period, federally funded surveys have
found that binge-drinking 12th-grade girls (the only
grade for which data are available) have shifted their
beverage of choice from beer to liquor since 2001, and
that in four states (the only places from which data are
available), current drinkers in grades nine through 12
are also now more likely to drink liquor.
Nearly half of youth overexposure to alcohol advertising
on television and in magazines results from placements
by a small number of brands, suggesting that the
majority of the industry is able to advertise its
products without overexposing youth. The U.S. Surgeon
General has stated that alcohol companies have a public
responsibility to ensure that the placement of their
advertising does not disproportionately expose youth to
messages about alcohol.
In 2006, Congress passed unanimously - and President
George W. Bush signed into law - legislation authorizing
the Department of Health and Human Services to monitor
and report annually to Congress the "rate of exposure of
youth to advertising and other media messages
encouraging and discouraging alcohol consumption." To
date, however, no funds have been appropriated for this
activity, and no such reporting has occurred.
The prevalence and the toll of underage drinking in the
United States remain high. Evidence that alcohol
advertising plays a role in the problem grows stronger
each year. With approximately 5,000 young lives per year
in the United States at stake, there is an ongoing need
not only for independent monitoring, but also for
alcohol companies to adopt a more meaningful and
effective standard for where they place their
advertisements.
On cable television, the industry's 30 percent standard
leaves 82 percent of advertising time-slots available
for alcohol advertising. The standard has not succeeded
in limiting or reducing youth exposure to alcohol
advertising on television. In Congressional hearings in
2003, Beer Institute President Jeff Becker referred to
the standard as "proportional" because approximately 30
percent of the population is under age 21.
Of the population under 21, children under age two are
not counted for television ratings by Nielsen. Of
two-to-20-year-olds' exposure to alcohol product
advertising between 2001 and 2007, 68 percent fell on
12-to-20-yearolds, a group that Nielsen reports only
made up 47 percent of the two-to-20 age group. Federal
surveys begin measuring underage drinking at age 12, and
the small amount of drinking among 12-year-olds suggests
that 12-to-20-year-olds are the group at greatest risk
of underage drinking. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates
that this group is 13 percent of the population.
Recognizing that 30 percent is not a proportional
standard when viewed in the light of the population at
greatest risk, the National Research Council and
Institute of Medicine, as well as 20 state attorneys
general, have called on the industry to consider
changing its standard to eliminate advertising on
programming with more than 15 percent youth (ages 12 to
20) in its audiences. A 15 percent standard would reduce
overall youth exposure to alcohol advertisements by 20
percent, according to CAMY research estimates, saving
lives and even saving the industry some money in
advertising costs.
Above: A Bacardi notice for a DJ contest it held on
MySpace.
Page 23: A print advertisement for Skyy vodkas that ran
in publications ranging from Maxim and Cosmopolitan, to
Rolling Stone and In Style.
NEW PRODUCTS FOR NEW DRINKERS
ALCOHOL DISTRIBUTORS in recent years have released new
products aimed toward young drinkers, such as alcopops
and alcoholic energy drinks. The trend has gone to
developing products that are highly youth oriented,"
says George Hacker, director of the Alcohol Policies
Project at the Center tor Science in the Public
Interest. These new products geared toward youth make it
easy for young people to initiate drinking."
Alcopops, such as Smirnoff Ice, Bacardi Silver and Skyy
Blue, are branded with popular hard-liquor names and
often have a higher alcohol content than beer, although
the taste of alcohol is masked by sugar, fruit
flavorings and carbonation. These products are marketed
like beer and advertised on network televisions, despite
the network policies against the advertising of their
hard-liquor namesakes.
Alcopops are especially popular with young girls. About
one third of teenage girls ages 12 to 18 have tried
alcopops, according to the California-based Marin
Institute. The Marin Institute estimates that underage
drinkers consumed 47 percent of all alcopops in
California in 2007. Alcopop consumption leads to
approximately 60 deaths a year in California and about
50,000 "incidents of harm" - including traffic
accidents, violence, suicide, alcohol poisoning and
fetal alcohol syndrome, among others - according to the
Marin Institute.
Alcoholic energy drinks, such as Tilt, Bud Extra and
Sparks, contain high levels of alcohol along with
ingredients like caffeine, taurine, ginseng and other
stimulants. The mixture of caffeine and alcohol can be
dangerous, as it makes drinkers feel more alert, when in
fact their senses and reflexes are impaired because of
the alcohol. In 2007, AnheuserBusch pulled its alcoholic
energy drink Spyke off shelves after the company
received a letter signed by 29 state attorneys general,
expressing their concern about the drink.
"Given the documented health and safety risks of
consuming alcohol in combination with caffeine or other
stimulants, Anheuser- Busch's decision to introduce and
promote these alcoholic energy drinks is extremely
troubling," the letter stated. "Young people are heavy
consumers of nonalcoholic energy drinks, and the
manufacturers of those products explicitly target the
teenage market. Promoting alcoholic beverages through
the use of ingredients, packaging features, logos and
marketing messages that mimic those of nonalcoholic
refreshments overtly capitalizes on the youth marketing
that already exists for drinks that may be legally
purchased by underage consumers."
Advocacy groups have been working with state
legislatures to pass measures making products such as
alcopops and alcoholic energy drinks less accessible to
underage youth. One of those measures involves
reclassifying alcopops as "distilled spirits," thus
removing them from many grocery and convenience store
shelves. Other measures include raising taxes on such
items to make them more expensive and therefore less
appealing to youth.
- Jennifer Wedekind
Above: Corona Extra enlisted country music superstar
Kenny Chesney to help promote its beer. The Center on
Alcohol Marketing and Youth lists Corona as one of the
companies that most overexposes youth to alcohol
advertising.
David Jernigan is executive director of the Center on
Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University,
and associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health. Ratings and other data
contained herein are (c) 2007 Nielsen Media Research,
Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
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