Alcohol Advertising and Youth: A Focus-Group Analysis of What Young People Find Appealing in Alcohol Advertising

Abstract

In an effort to ascertain how youths interpret, understand and respond to the themes and images portrayed in television alcohol advertisements, focus-group discussions were conducted with students ages 9–15 in a Northern California community. These discussions revealed that students like lifestyle and image-oriented elements of television beer commercials that are delivered with humor and youth-oriented music and/or characters. Conversely, they dislike product-oriented elements of alcohol commercials. Students identified the main message of television beer commercials as an exhortation to purchase the product based on its quality and its relationship to sexual attractiveness. Participants indicated that beer commercials imply that attractive young adults drink beer to personally rewarding ends. These findings suggest that television beer commercials may need to focus less on youthful lifestyle images and more on the product itself in order to appeal less to young people.

Keywords

Television alcohol advertising youth

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aitken

P.P.

Eadie

D.R.

Leathar

D.S.

McNeill

R.E.J.

& Scott

A.C.

(1988). Television advertisements for alcoholic drinks do reinforce under-age drinking. British Journal of Addiction, 83, 1399–1419.

Aitken

P.P.

Leathar

D.S.

& Scott

A.C.

(1988). Ten-to-sixteen-year-olds' perceptions of advertisements for alcoholic drinks. Alcohol & Alcoholism, 23, 491–500.

Alaniz

M.L.

& Wilkes

(1998). Pro-drinking messages and message environments for young adults: The case of alcohol industry advertising in African American, Latin, and Native American communities. Journal of Public Health Policy, 19, 447–472.

Austin

E.W.

& Nach-Ferguson

(1995). Sources and influences of young school-age children's general and brand-specific knowledge about alcohol. Health Communication, 7, 1–20.

Besen

(1997). US alcohol beverage advertisers sharpen their focus on core brands. Impact, 27, 1–5.

Christiansen

B.A.

Goldman

M.S.

& Brown

S.A.

(1985). The differential development of adolescent alcohol expectancies may predict adult alcoholism. Addictive Behaviors, 10, 299–306.

Christiansen

B.A.

Goldman

M.S.

& Inn

(1982). The development of alcohol-related expectancies in adolescents: Separating pharmacological from social learning influences. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 50, 336–344.

Covell

(1992). The appeal of image advertisements: Age, gender, and product differences. Journal of Early Adolescence, 12, 46–60.

Covell

Dion

K.L.

& Dion

K.K.

(1994). Gender differences in evaluations of tobacco and alcohol advertisements. Canadian Journal of Behavioral Science, 26, 404–420.

10.

Department of Finance, Demographic Unit. (2001). http://www.dof.ca.gov/HTMUFS_DATA/profiles/pf_home.htm.

11.

Goldman

Brown

S.A.

& Christiansen

B.A.

(1987). Expectancy theory: Thinking about drinking. In Blane

H.T.

& Leonard

K.E.

(eds.), Psychological theories of drinking and alcoholism (pp. 181–226). New York: Guilford Press.

12.

Grube

J.W.

(1995). Television alcohol portrayals, alcohol advertising, and alcohol expectancies among children and adolescents. In Martin

S.E.

(ed.), The effects of the mass media on use and abuse of alcohol (pp. 105–121). Bethesda, MD: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

13.

Grube

J.W.

& Wallack

(1994). Television beer advertising and drinking knowledge, beliefs, and intentions among schoolchildren. American Journal of Public Health, 84, 254–259.

14.

Grube

J.W.

Madden

P.A.

& Friese

(1996). The effects of television alcohol advertising on adolescent drinking. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism, Washington, DC, June 22–27, 1996.

15.

Herd

D.A.

(1993). Contesting culture: Alcohol-related identity movements in contemporary African-American communities. Contemporary Drug Problems, 24, 739–758.

16.

Kelly

K.J.

& Edwards

R.W.

(1998). Image advertisements for alcohol products: Is their appeal associated with adolescents' intention to consume alcohol? Adolescence, 33, 47–59.

17.

Miller

P.G.

Smith

G.T.

& Goldman

M.S.

(1990). Emergence of alcohol expectancies in childhood: A possible critical period. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 51, 343–349.

18.

Saffer

(1997). Alcohol advertising and motor vehicle fatalities. Review of Economics and Statistics, 79, 431–442.

19.

Wallack

Cassady

& Grube

(1990). TV beer commercials and children: Exposure, attention, beliefs, and expectations about drinking as an adult. Report prepared for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, Falls Church, VA, Fall 1990.

20.

Wyllie

Zhang

J.F.

& Casswell

(1998). Responses to televised alcohol advertisements associated with drinking behavior of 10–17–year-olds. Addiction, 93, 361–371.