Television: Alcohol's Vast Adland

Publication Date:

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Author(s): Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth

Research Area: Health

Type: Report

Abstract:

The alcohol industry trade associations have voluntary guidelines on the placement of advertising in an effort to limit youth exposure to alcohol marketing. The Center for Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) commissioned Virtual Media Resources (VMR) to audit television alcohol advertising in 2001 to see if these voluntary guidelines are adequate. After analyzing 208,909 television alcohol ads, CAMY found the following: (1) the alcohol industry's voluntary guidelines for ad placements on television are so lax that they allow the substantial exposure of youth to alcoholic beverage advertising, including advertising on programs with disproportionate numbers of young people in the viewing audience; (2) even when adults were more likely to see television alcohol advertising than youth, in many instances youth saw almost as much television alcohol advertising as the adults; and (3) because of the placement of the commercials, almost a quarter of alcohol advertising on television in 2001 was more likely to be seen by youth than adults. Through strategic ad placement on specific networks and during specific programs, almost a quarter of the television alcohol advertising in 2001- 51,084 ads - was delivered more effectively to youth than to adults. This report presents a detailed financial and numeric breakdown of alcohol advertisements by show title, program type, network, and company brand.