Exposure to alcohol advertising is an everyday occurrence. Alcohol advertising is persuasive not only to adults but to those who are too young to buy alcohol legally. Although parents and peers have a large impact on youth decisions to drink, marketing also has a significant impact by influencing the attitudes of parents and peers and helping to create an environment that promotes underage drinking. Alcohol companies focus billions of dollars on advertising their products and still claim that the effect is minimal. I pose a few questions that are; who are the targets of alcohol advertising? How does alcohol advertising affect the people targeted by alcohol companies? Finally what actions are being taken to …show more content…
A recent economic analysis assessed the effects of alcohol advertising on youth drinking behaviors and concluded that a complete ban of alcohol advertising would reduce monthly levels of youth drinking by 24 percent and youth binge drinking by about 42 percent. These figures are outstanding and clearly prove that the effect that alcohol advertising has on the targeted youth is a great one. Alcohol companies claim that their advertisements are purely to try and persuade the legal drinker to explore the different variations of their product. However their actions completely contradict their claims. A study on alcohol advertising in magazines found that the number of beer and distilled spirits ad increased with the number of youth readership. Many of the articles found in the magazines not only displaying new products but all products and all different ages and classes of people who enjoy them. Making it impossible to have any resentment or feeling that it may be inappropriate to enjoy the product. Ultimately this is affecting the target of the advertisement which was everyone, by encouraging them to drink. As we now know, Billions of dollars are being poured into the promotion of alcohol; however actions are also being taken to the prevention of alcohol related tragedies and the inappropriate usage of advertising amongst youth. Organizations do this by using media advocacy to build support for policies that will reduce exposure of
