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Alcohol marketing and
consumption:
A review of the scientific evidence
Patrick Kenny
School of Marketing, Dublin Institute of Technology
Institute for Social Marketing, University of Stirling
[email protected]
Product
Promotion
What is
marketing?
Place
Price
Product
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Not just the physical product but the brand
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Brands have personalities
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Appeal to consumers with those characteristics or
who want to have those characteristics
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Alcohol expectancies
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Positioned in the market and target consumers
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New product development
Positioning of alcopops

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“Young people seem less
prepared to sip beer for
hours, culturally they like
short sharp fixes…five
years ago there were less
alternatives to getting a
buzz or getting high. The
challenge for the industry
is to make alcohol part of
that choice.”
“Youngsters can get
Ecstasy for £10 or £12 and
get a much better buzz
than they can from
alcohol...it is a major threat
to alcohol led business”
Price
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Connected to the brand
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Supports the positioning of the brand and is
targeted at a specific market
Place
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Physical
distribution of the
brand and
merchandising
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Carefully
negotiated to
reinforce brand
position
Promotion

It is NOT just television advertising
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Advertising
Sponsorship
Online
PR
Packaging

Focused around the brand, not the product
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Highly integrated and mutually reinforcing
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Most research on advertising
Alcohol marketing attracts the young
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Humour

Music
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Animal characters
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Storyline
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The more likeable the ad, the greater the influence

Focus on the product itself is less appealing
Young people vulnerable

“Adolescent self-consciousness and self-doubt
may lead them to rely on consumption symbols for
self-expression and self-worth and to manifest
materialism to a greater extent than
adults…adolescents may be especially tempted to
use heavily advertised , popular brands of alcohol
…because these brands may fulfill their needs for
immediate gratification and thrill seeking and their
need for high-status consumption symbols”
Pechmann et al 2005
The industry’s main argument

Alcohol is a mature market

Advertising causes brand switching in mature markets
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Advertisers are not concerned with their
competitors brands or with increasing product
category as a whole
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Relies on econometric studies
How industries evolve
Econometric studies
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Statistical models that seek relationships between
total alcohol consumption and total advertising
expenditure
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Sometimes include other factors
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Income, price, economic growth, time of year. the
weather(!)
Results of econometric studies
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Generally suggest that there is no (or very small)
relationship between advertising and alcohol
consumption
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Similar results when examining consumption
before and after advertising bans
Weakness of econometric studies
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Use only estimates of advertising expenditure
Estimates only cover media costs, not creativity
Even with exact costs, it’s still too blunt

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Ignores creativity, interaction and media vehicle effects
No control for international spillover
Rarely account for lagged effects across time
Effects of extra advertising likely to be very small
Ignores wider marketing mix and integration
Examines entire market and ignores segmentation
issues
Why segmentation is important

Young people a significant concern
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A weak impact of advertising at the level of the
population may just reflect the average of no effect
amongst established drinkers and a more
significant impact on younger consumers (Aitken &
Hastings, 1992)
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Younger adolescents with less drinking experience
and less cognitive development are more
susceptible to advertising (Collins et al 2007).
The irony of econometric research
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Marketers do not use econometrics to evaluate the
effectiveness of their campaigns
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Advertising effectiveness examined at level of the
consumer
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Consumer level appropriate for alcohol debate

Alcohol expectancies at the individual level an important
driver of behaviour
Longitudinal studies
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Most scientifically rigorous
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Tracks consumers over time
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Capable of showing causality
Meier et al (2008)
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“Regardless of their explicit intention there is
evidence for an effect of alcohol advertisements on
underage drinkers. Consistent with this, evidence
suggests that exposure to…TV, music videos and
billboards, which contain alcohol advertisements,
predicts onset of youth drinking and increased
drinking.”
Anderson et al (2009)
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“Longitudinal studies consistently suggest that
exposure to media and commercial
communications on alcohol is associated with the
likelihood that adolescents will start to drink
alcohol…Based on the strength of this association,
we conclude that alcohol advertising and
promotion increases the likelihood that
adolescents will start to use alcohol, and to drink
more if they are already using alcohol.”
Smith & Foxcroft (2009)
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“The data from these studies suggest that
exposure to alcohol advertising in young people
influences their subsequent drinking behaviour.
The effect was consistent across studies, a
temporal relationship between exposure and
drinking initiation was shown, and a dose response
between amount of exposure and frequency of
drinking was clearly demonstrated…It is certainly
plausible that advertising would have an effect on
youth consumer behaviour, as has been shown for
tobacco and food marketing.”
Other aspects of marketing
Branded clothing
Sponsorship
Pricing
New product
development
Online marketing
• McClure et al (2006)
• Fisher et al (2007)
• Wyllie et al (1989)
• Coate & Grossman (1988)
• Goldberg et al (1994)
• Jackson et al (2000)
• Casswell (2004)
ASAI Code
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Section 7.4(a)
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should not imply that the presence or consumption of
alcohol can contribute to social…success or distinction
Section 7.4(b)
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should not suggest, by word or allusion that the presence
or consumption of alcohol can contribute towards sexual
success or make the drinker more attractive.
Strategic ambiguity
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Mixed messages
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Evidence that young people consider “responsible
drinking” to mean not drink driving
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Can those who profit from alcohol be expected to
credibly encourage its reduced consumption?
Codes and regulation
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Has been an improvement with respect to
compliance
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Fewer complaints
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Central Copy Clearance
May be due to reduced motivation from public
Reduction from 33% to 25% of viewership
underage age an improvement but does not go far
enough
The risk of complacency
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None of the research is predicated on the content
of the ads or their compliance with codes
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Mere existence of ads normalises consumption
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How to regulate below the line promotions?