Authors: Elizabeth D. Waiters, Andrew J. Treno and Joel W. Grube
Title: Alcohol Advertising and youth: a focus-group analysis of whatyoung people find appealing in alcohol advertising
Journal: Contemporary Drug Problems, 2001, 28, 695-718.

Objective: To examine how young people interpret and respond to alcohol advertisements on television by conducting focus-group discussions.

Design: Focus group, cross-sectional study

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

Participants: respondents (N=97) in six elementary, middle, and high schools from four school districts between 9-15 years of age in (Santa Clara County) Northern California, USA were selected. Each focus-group consisted of 5 to 11 students.

Methods: Respondents were exposed to a tape with television advertisements alcoholic beverages. The six advertisements on the tape were selected to reflect the diversity of the advertisements and were presented to the respondents as "types" of alcohol advertisements. Transcriptions of the participants' comments were summarized and entered into a database.

Findings: Discussions revealed that young people like lifestyle and image-oriented elements of televised beer advertisements that use humour and music and/or characters (animals/people). Product-oriented information, on the other hand, was perceived as less attractive. There were some differences between age groups and gender. Boys were more inclined to believe that the ad suggested sexual success and girls were more inclined to believe that drinkers in the ad were older and/or male students. Younger respondents liked animals more and disliked product-information more than did older respondents. Respondents in the discussion groups indicated that alcohol advertisements imply that attractive young adults drink alcohol to receive personal rewarding. Older respondents were more sceptical on the intentions of the alcohol industry's efforts to manipulate them than younger respondents.

Conclusion Authors: Since alcohol advertisement with solely product-oriented images are perceived as boring or are not understand by young people, alcohol advertisers should be encouraged to produce more product-oriented advertisements.

Remarks EUCAM:
The public-policy recommendations made by the authors (see Conclusion Authors) is very interesting and reflects the results of their study. A suggestion for further research could be to examine what young people find attractive in alcohol advertisement, but also what adults find attractive. It is unrealistic to expect from the industry to limit itself to produce more product-oriented advertisements if not solely young people but also adults are inclined to purchase less alcoholic beverages.

Results of this publication are in line with findings of Chen et al. (2005). The latter study quantifies the effects of likeability of advertisements on willingness of young people to purchase the brand or alcoholic beverage.