Alcohol companies may have substantially cut down on the amount of magazine ads aimed at underage individuals in recent years — but young people are still being overexposed to such ads — especially those for beer, according to a new report.
A survey showed that the number of alcohol ads aimed at underage audiences (those with 30% of individuals ages 12 to 20) nearly reached zero between 2001 and 2008, according to researchers from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Only three such advertisements were placed in 2008 — all for Hypnotiq liqueur and all in the magazine Allure, which has a mostly female audience that is 35.1% underage.
Many alcohol companies have voluntarily complied with recommendations from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to reduce alcohol ads from the current industry standard of 30% to 15% of audiences made up of individuals under age 21. However, only one company cut back on most of its product ads directed at this age group.
While overall exposure to alcohol ads in magazines with audiences above 15% or greater among youth ages 12 to 20 declined between 2001 and 2008 by 48.4 percent, “overexposure” to those adds remained common.
“Overexposure” to such ads among youth actually increased — the proportion of alcohol ads placed in magazines reaching a 15% to 30% underage audience — went up during the study period, from 69.4% to 78.4%, according to the Johns Hopkins researchers.
“While total youth exposure to alcohol advertising in magazines has declined, overexposure is still common, and overexposing ad placements account for the majority of youth exposure to alcohol advertising,” the report authors wrote.
“Stricter standards are needed to protect youth from the risks posed to them by exposure to advertising for alcoholic beverages.”
Underage drinking is a widespread problem, with more people younger than 21 drinking alcohol than smoking cigarettes or using illegal drugs, according to the report.
There is mounting evidence that exposure to alcohol advertising not only increases the likelihood of drinking in the first place, but of consuming a greater quantity.
In 1999, the Federal Trade Commission recommended that alcohol companies limit their advertising to magazines with a reading audience less than 30% underage; the previous threshold had been 50%.
In 2003 in a self-regulatory move, the leading alcohol trade associations said they would no longer advertise in media outlets reaching more than 30% underage individuals.
To see whether the companies followed through, researchers at the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth commissioned Virtual Media Resources, a marketing research firm, to analyze alcohol advertisements placed in national U.S. magazines from 2001 to 2008.
The new 30% standard precluded advertising in only nine of 160 magazines analyzed.
Another 25 magazines had youth audiences of between 15% and 30%, and more than three-quarters of advertisements were placed in these magazines by 2008.
Because individuals ages 12 to 20 make up about 15% of the population, advertising in magazines with a greater percentage of youth generally leads to overexposure in this age group.
The analysis found that a small number of brands were responsible for the bulk of the overexposure.
Of the 325 brands advertising during the study, just 16 (5%) accounted for half of the advertising in magazines with a 15% to 30% youth audience; 40 brands (13%) accounted for 80% of the advertising.
Beer and alcopops advertising consistently overexposed youth from 2001 to 2008, according to the report.
“At times, spirits advertising exposed youth nearly as much as it exposed adults who could legally purchase alcohol, but the aggregate figures mask the performance of individual spirits brands, some of which have consistently overexposed youth,” the researchers noted.
“The phenomenon of a small number of alcohol brands driving youth overexposure points to the sensitivity of youth exposure to advertising practices at the brand level, and to the importance of changing brand advertising practices if youth exposure is to be further reduced,” the report authors stated.