Answer:
Does alcohol advertising increase the overall
level of alcohol consumption? Does it predispose
children and adolescents to drinking? Although
these and other related questions have been raised
by public health advocates and echoed in public
opinion surveys, the evidence from research to
date is mixed and far from conclusive. In general,
studies based on economic analyses suggest that
advertising does not increase overall consumption,
but instead may encourage people to switch
beverage brands or types. At the same time,
research based on survey data indicates that
children who like alcohol advertisements intend
to drink more frequently as adults. While these
findings might offer some grounds for both
reassurance and concern, the limitations of the
research methods that have been used hinder the
ability to draw firm conclusions about cause and
effect in either case.
In recent years, public health advocates have
called for strict regulation or elimination of alcohol advertising (Mosher 1994), and communitylevel action has focused on reducing local alcohol
advertising (Woodruff 1996). Particular attention
has been devoted to how alcohol advertising
might affect young people (Atkin 1993) and to
the targeting of minority communities (Abramson
1992; Alaniz and Wilkes 1995; Scott et al. 1992).
A poll of public attitudes found that 57 percent
of the public support prohibiting alcoholic beverage advertisements on television, 64 percent
support advertising to counteract alcohol advertisements, and 41 percent support prohibiting
sports sponsorship by the alcohol industry
(Kaskutas 1993).
As described in this section, researchers have
examined the effects of alcohol advertising
through four main types of studies: experimental
research in controlled settings; econometric
analyses, which apply economic research techniques; surveys; and intervention studies of
“media literacy” programs that encourage
skepticism about advertisements. In general,
experimental studies based in laboratory settings
provide little consistent evidence that alcohol
advertising influences people’s drinking behaviors
or beliefs about alcohol and its effects (Kohn
and Smart 1984; Kohn et al. 1984; Lipsitz
1993; Slater et al. 1997; Sobell et al. 1986).
In addition, econometric studies of market data
have produced mixed results, with most showing
no significant relationship between advertising
and overall consumption levels (Fisher and Cook
1995; Gius 1996; Goel and Morey 1995; Nelson
and Moran 1995).
Survey research of children and adolescents, however, provides some evidence of links between
alcohol advertising and greater intentions to
drink, favorable beliefs about alcohol, and a
greater likelihood of drinking (Austin and Meili
1994; Austin and Nach-Ferguson 1995; Grube
1995; Grube and Wallack 1994; Wyllie et al.
1998a,b). Still, the survey study designs employed thus far have not been able to establish
whether, for example, the advertisements caused
the beliefs and behaviors, or whether preexisting
beliefs and behaviors led to an increased awareness of the advertisements. Media literacy
training may increase the ability of children
and adolescents to offer counterarguments to
messages in alcohol advertisements (Austin and
Johnson 1997a,b; Slater et al. 1996a), but studies
have not yet measured whether these effects
persist beyond a short term.