Authors: Meng-Jinn Chen, Joel W. Grube, Melina Bersamin, Elizabeth Waiters, Deborah B. Keefe
Title: Alcohol Advertising: What Makes It Attractive to Youth?
Journal: Journal od Health Communication, 2005, 10, 553-565.

Objective: To examine the responses of specific features in alcohol advertisements its effect on the willingness and likeliness purchase of the alcoholic beverage.

Design: Cross-sectional study

Setting: Respondents of a birth cohort have been assessed every few ears in Dunedin, New Zealand

Participants: respondents (N=253) between 10 and 17 years of age in California, USA.

Methods: Respondents were exposed to a tape with television advertisements of soft drinks and alcoholic beverages. Additionally, respondents were asked to rate specific features of these advertisements. In addition, it was examined whether the attractiveness of beer advertisements affects the overall liking of the advertisements which in turn could predict the effectiveness of the ads (indicated by willingness to purchase the alcoholic beverage and likeliness to buy the brand.

Findings: Perceived likeability of beer advertisements is a function of the positive affective responses evoked by the specific elements featured in the advertisements. Attractive elements were liking of elements in the story (standardized factor loading= .98), humour (standardized factor loading= .90), and to less extend people characters, animal characters, and music (standardized factor loading= .77, .73, and .45 respectively). Liking of specific elements featured in beer advertisements significantly increases the overall attractiveness of these advertisements (β = .97, with P<.001) and subsequently to advertising effectiveness (β = .68, with p<.001) indicated by purchasing intent of product (standardized factor loading= .90) and brand promoted by these advertisements (standardized factor loading= .89). Advertisements that focus primarily on product qualities or send a message of legal drinking age were rated less favourably and evoked less desire to purchase the product.

Conclusion Authors: Likeable advertisements are more effective in persuading young people to want to purchase the brand or alcoholic beverage. Humour and a nice story are the most attractive elements in ads. A description of the product was not rated favourably by young people and evoked less desire to purchase the beverage or brand.

Remarks EUCAM:
- One of the main conclusions of the authors is that contrary to the use of humour and using an attractive story, the use of mainly product information in advertisement is perceived by young people as less attractive and subsequently evokes less willingness to buy the brand or the beverage. Unfortunately, the authors do not include the effect of product information in the structural equation model, therefore we can not measure the size of this effect. It would be interesting to include (the lack of) product information as an indicator of the latent variable Ad Attractiveness. Similar comment can be made on the effects of including a message of legal drinking age.

- Secondly, as the authors already address causality can not be established by this cross-sectional study. The authors hypothesize that it possible is a reciprocal effect. By structural equation modelling, as the authors already use, this hypothesis could be tested. However, the authors do not test for significant reciprocal paths in the model.