The Effects of Alcohol
Advertising on Youth
Drinking Over Time
Leslie Snyder
University of Connecticut
How much alcohol advertising
is out there?
Total Alcohol Advertising Expenditures
2001-2003
$2,500,000,000
$2,000,000,000
$1,500,000,000
$1,000,000,000
$500,000,000
$0
2001 (321,458) 2002 (425,385) 2003 (468,034)
TNS Media Intelligence/CMR
2
Most ad money was spent on TV
Total Spending for Alcohol Ads in 2003 by Media
Magazine
26%
Radio
8%
Newspaper
2%
Outdoor
2%
Internet
2%
TV
60%
3
Spending by product type
Spirits
27%
Wine
9%
Beer
64%
4
Spending by parent company
in 2003
an
m
Fo
r
wn
-
Be
er
Br
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st
on
Bo
C
on
s
te
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la
tio
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ek
en
H
ei
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r
bm
ille
h
ol
p
Ad
Sa
Co
o
eo
D
ia
g
ch
se
r-B
us
he
u
rs
$500,000,000
$450,000,000
$400,000,000
$350,000,000
$300,000,000
$250,000,000
$200,000,000
$150,000,000
$100,000,000
$50,000,000
$0
An
Ad spending
Total Ad Spending by Alcohol Company, 2003
5
Current study


Funded by National Institute of Alcohol
Abuse and Alcoholism (R01AA11551).
Purpose is to look at the effects of
alcohol ads on youth.
6
Methods


Computer-aided telephone survey of youth
aged 15-26.
Sampled from 24 United States cities,
representing 75% of the population, which lives
in metropolitan areas above 957,000 in
population.
Wave
Wave
Wave
Wave

1, N =
2, N =
3, N =
4, N =
1872
1173
787
588
May-July 1999
Dec-Jan 2000
May-June, 2000
Dec-Jan, 2001
Attrition higher among baseline drinkers; so
conservative test.
 Sample weighted by city population, gender, &
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respondent age

Key measures



Behavior: # drinks in the past month, computed
from frequency of drinking, average quantity drunk
per episode, & maximum drunk per episode.
Self-report ad exposure in the past month: 8
item index for exposure to beer and liquor ad
exposure on TV, radio, magazines, and billboards.
Market-level advertising availability: sum of
money spent on ads on TV, radio, billboards, &
newspapers per market. Purchased industry data.
8
Are youth exposed to alcohol
ads?


Markets had between 285 (Tulsa) &
13,170 (Chicago) ads in 1999 & 2000,
with a mean of 4314 ads. Ad amounts
were stable over time.
Youth reported exposure to 3 ads on
average in past month.
9
How much do kids drink?

43% of underage youth 15-20 had at least 1
drink in the past month at baseline.


Underage drinkers had an average of 28 drinks per
month, and 4.3 drinks per drinking session.
53% of youth 15-26 had at least 1 drink in the
past month at baseline.

Drinkers had an average of 36 drinks per month,
and 4.4 drinks per drinking session.
10
What is the relationship between
alcohol advertising and drinking?



H1: Youth living in markets with more
ads drink more than youth in markets
with fewer ads.
H2: Youth exposed to more ads drink
more than youth exposed to fewer ads.
H3: Youth exposed to more ads
increase their drinking over time.
11
Analysis





Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM 5.04)
Form of mixed modeling, with random &
fixed effects.
Accounts for clustered sample (markets).
Allows partitioning of variance –
observation, individual levels.
Keeps all data on cases, including cases
that drop out after baseline.
12
Model
Alcohol use = intercept
+ time
+ ad exposure observation level
+ mean ad exposure individual level
+ market ad availability market level
+ market sales market level
+ prior alcohol use observation level
+ control variables
(Time, Gender, Age, Whether in high school or not,
African-Americans, Hispanics, Live with their parents or
not, # hours worked per week.)
13
H1: Youth living in markets with
more alcohol ads drink more than
youth in markets with fewer ads.



Market-level ad availability was
positively related to alcohol use.
The relationship held when
controlling for amount of alcohol
sales in the market.
Results held for both underage
youth 15-20 and youth 15-26.
14
H2: Youth exposed to more
alcohol ads drink more than
youth exposed to fewer ads.



Alcohol use increased when a
youth had higher mean level of ad
exposure across all waves.
Within-individual ad exposure was
not statistically significant.
Results held for both underage
youth 15-20 and youth 15-26.
15
Alcohol use, drinks per month
Youth drinking amounts by ad
exposure & market-level ad
availability
25
Male, high ad
availability
20
Male, mean ad
availability
Male, low ad
availability
15
Female, high ad
availability
10
Female, mean ad
availability
5
0
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Female, low ad
availability
Alcohol advertising exposure
16
Example case
Number of drinks a 20 year old white
male is predicted to have had in the past
month
Market ad availability
Ad
exposure
0
10
Low
Hi
3
12
6
21
17
H3: Youth exposed to more
alcohol ads increased their
drinking over time.


Statistically controlled for prior alcohol
use & prior ad exposure.
Individual-level ad exposure and
market ad availability predicted
changes in alcohol use.
18
Summary
Youth drinking was greater than their
peers and increased more over time
when:
 youth reported more alcohol ad
exposure than their peers and
 youth lived in markets with more
ads.
19
Conclusions


The amount of local alcohol advertising
in the media environment and amount of
advertising recalled matters to youth
alcohol use.
Underage youth displayed same pattern
of effects as the entire age range.
20
Conclusions


The results address the reverse causality
question – can a correlation between youth
ad exposure and drinking be due entirely to
drinkers noticing more ads?
No,
 because using the objective measure of
market ad availability we still find a
relationship with drinking, i.e. youth
alcohol drinkers tend to live in places with
more ads.
 and because increases in drinking over
time are associated with higher levels of ad
21
exposure.
Conclusions


The results extend research on alcohol ad
bans by linking # ads in market with
individual youth behavior.
The relationship between market-level ad
availability & youth drinking was not due
to market differences in alcohol sales.
22
Conclusions

Conservative test of advertising
availability effects because it
measures the “added value” over &
above the effects of national ads.
23
Conclusions



Youth reporting greater amounts of long-term
exposure to alcohol advertising drank more
than youth who saw fewer ads, and were
more likely to increase drinking over time.
Results are consistent with theories of
cumulative effects of advertising.
For each person, the amount of alcohol
consumption was not sensitive to short-term
differences in alcohol advertising exposure.
24
Conclusions


Some argue that advertising is
unrelated to youth drinking and at best
causes brand switching.
If true, we would not have found
positive relationships between alcohol
advertising and changes over time in
youth alcohol use.
25
Conclusion



If current educational efforts by industry
groups were enough to negate any effects of
alcohol advertising on youth drinking, we
would have found null effects.
If alcohol ads only impact adults, we would
not have found the effects of alcohol
advertising on underage youth drinking.
Alcohol advertising is a contributing factor to
youth drinking quantities over time.
26
Contact information:
Dr. Leslie Snyder
Dept. of Communication Sciences
University of Connecticut
Storrs, CT 06269-1085 USA
860 486-4383 (o)
leslie.snyder @uconn.edu
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