Impact Of Alcohol Advertisements

Alcohol advertising creates a climate in which dangerous attitudes toward alcohol are presented as normal, appropriate, and innocuous. Most importantly, alcohol advertising links alcohol with precisely those qualities such as happiness, wealth, prestige, sophistication, success, maturity, athletic ability, virility, and creativity, sexual satisfaction thatthe misuse of alcohol usually diminishes and destroys. Alcohol advertising is effective, it increases consumption and contributes to a widespread problem of raising the number of victims due to alcohol abuse.

The media has played a leading role in encouraging the use of alcohol among young people by such means as the portrayal of drinking in congenial social settings, by associating the habit with glamour and celebrity status, and by direct and indirect advertising. A national study published in January 2006 concluded that greater exposure to alcohol advertising contributes to an increase in drinking among underage youth. Specifically, for each additional ad a young person saw (above the monthly youth average of 23), he or she drank 1% more. Alcohol advertising also contributes significantly towards consumption even in the case of non-drinkers. Over the years the age at which young people start to consume alcohol has drastically come down.

Whether young people are directly targeted by the advertisers or not, the advertising of alcohol, the marketing of alcoholic products, peer pressure and parental influence, all play a part in the level of alcohol consumption among young people. Research and studies show that it would be wise to consider prohibiting the advertisements of alcohol in television, radio and other print media.