Alcohol Marketing Study Under Fire
The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at Georgetown University released a study last month that found alcohol advertising is common on radio stations that have disproportionately large youth audiences. CAMY wants voluntary marketing standards enforced and strengthened.
Alcohol marketers and industry lobbying groups said the study, which analyzed data from the summer of 2004, was outdated and gave an inaccurate picture of alcohol marketing on radio today.
“CAMY’s so-called facts — like the aptly named Dodo bird that died out in the late 17th century — are no longer relevant and should be officially extinct,” says John Kaestner, the VP-consumer affairs for Anheuser-Busch.
The results of the study suggest that alcohol marketers are not abiding by the voluntary guidelines they established in 2003. Those guidelines, which took effect in January 2004, bar ads on radio programs where 30% or more of the audience is between 12-and 20-years old. The prior standard had been 50%.
David Jernigan, CAMY’s executive director, says that the industry had nine months after announcing the guidelines before it began to analyze ads.
“That should be plenty of time to adjust their purchase agreements,” Jernigan says. “Some of the brands didn’t seem to have any trouble complying. The wide diversity among brands suggests that some people were paying more attention to it than others.”
The study evaluated 67,404 alcohol ads aired on the radio in 104 U.S. markets from June 15 to Aug. 5, 2004, and found that 14% of the ads, or 9,158, aired during programming that violated the 30% threshold. Even though this was a dramatic improvement over a 2003 CAMY study that found that 28% of the ads were in violation, CAMY, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which released the study, called for further action. For 11 of the 25 most advertised brands analyzed in 2004, more than 50% of all ads placed on programming exceeded the 30% threshold, including five brands for which about three quarters of youth exposure resulted from these placements — Bacardi, Colt 45, Corona Extra, Hennessy cognacs and Stolichnaya vodkas.
“The bottom line that our study shows is that young people are still being exposed to a lot of alcohol advertising on radio, and other studies have shown that advertising affects their drinking behavior,” says Dr. Robert Brewer, alcohol team leader at the CDC, Atlanta. “We’re interested in reducing underage drinking and binge drinking and one of the factors, clearly, is exposure to advertising.”
Topping the list, Bacardi Rums, placed 91%, or 48 of the 53 ads reviewed on programming that had a greater than 30% youth audience. Colt 45 Malt Liquor followed with 87%, or 1,088 ads, with Hennessy Cognacs at 37% or 395 ads, taking the No. 3 spot. Bass Ale ranked fourth with 30% of its ads run on programming with a disproportionately large youth audience. Molson Golden (28%), Miller Genuine Draft (27%) and Corona Extra Light Beer (21%) followed, the study found.
“Bacardi does follow the DISCUS (Distilled Spirits Council of the United States) code in regards to its media buys, ” a spokesperson says. The DISCUS code follows the industry’s voluntary 30% threshold guidelines.
Colt 45 had, by far, the most youth impressions (15.4 million), 93%, coming from ads over the threshold, compared to a total 16.5 million total impressions. The only brand with a higher percentage of youth impressions (98%), or 67, was Bacardi Rums, but with a vastly smaller number of total youth impressions (69). Brands following Colt 45 were both Amstel Light Beer, with 6.7 million impressions, or 34% of a total 19.7 million youth impressions, and Bud Light with 6.7 million youth impressions, or 17% of 40.4 million total impressions.
Pabst Brewing Co., the maker of Colt 45, did not return calls for comment.
Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Bud, says that it adheres to The Beer Institute’s advertising and marketing code, or the voluntary guidelines.
“Anheuser-Busch is a responsible marketer, and we remain steadfast in that commitment as the global alcohol industry leader in promoting responsibility and respect for the law,” Kaestner says.
The Beer Institute says that CAMY is an advocacy group, not a research organization. It says the study draws on data during a time when the beer industry had only recently changed its ad code and criticized the report as “a distorted and inaccurate view of the beer industry’s compliance.”
CAMY’s Jernigan says it takes time to analyze the data and that it plans a 2005 study, but that no release dates have been set. CAMY, a short-term project that began in 2002 and ends in June 2007, also studies alcohol marketing in TV and print ads.
“We’re not hunting for the worst year,” Jernigan said of the 2004 data. “We release the data when it’s ready.”
“Brewers market our products responsibly to adults of legal age and are adamantly opposed to illegal underage drinking,” said Jeff Becker, president of the Beer Institute in a statement. “The key to preventing illegal underage drinking is preventing youth access to alcohol.”
He says that could be accomplished by brewers continued work with parents, law enforcement and community leaders. Becker also cites a number of reports that refuted CAMY’s claims that advertising leads to youth drinking, including a Roper Youth Report that said that the primary influence on teen’s decision to drink illegally is their parents, not advertising.
The Federal Trade Commission is readying work on its 2007 alcohol study — it conducted studies in 1999 and 2003 — which looks at compliance with ad placement and the status of third-party review, which three major industry trade organizations — DISCUS, the Beer Institute and the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America — have adopted. The FTC gathers data from the alcohol companies themselves and submits the reports to congress, which requested the studies.
“The industry made a change in 2003, but we really want to know now if they’re doing it on an across-the-board basis and comprehensively,” says Janet Evans, director of the alcohol program for the FTC.
