Analysis of the responsibility messages found that 88 percent served to reinforce promotion of the advertised product, and many directly contradicted scenes depicted in the ads. For example, a vodka ad displayed a photograph of an open pour of alcohol with a tagline that implied the drinker had been partying all night. In small lettering, the same ad advised the audience to enjoy the product responsibly.
“While responsibility messages were present in almost nine out of ten ads, none of them provided any information about what it means to drink responsibly,” says study leader Katherine Clegg Smith, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Instead, we found that the vast majority of responsibility messages were used to convey promotional information, such as appealing product qualities or how the product should be consumed.”
Federal regulations do not require “responsibility” statements in alcohol advertising, and while the alcohol industry’s voluntary codes for marketing and promotion emphasize responsibility, they provide no definition for “responsible drinking.”
“The contradiction between appearing to promote responsible drinking and the actual use of ‘drink responsibly’ messages to reinforce product promotion suggests that these messages can be deceptive and misleading,” said David Jernigan, PhD, director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
A better option for promoting responsible drinking in advertising would be to replace or supplement unregulated messages with prominently placed, tested warning messages that directly address behaviors presented in the ad and that do not reinforce marketing messages, Smith says.
“We know from experience with tobacco that warning messages on product containers and in advertising can affect consumption of potentially dangerous products,” she says. “We should apply that knowledge to alcohol ads and provide real warnings about the negative effects of excessive alcohol use.”
The research was funded under a cooperative agreement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Defining strategies for promoting product through ‘drink responsibly’ messages in magazine ads for beer, spirits and alcopops” was written by Katherine Clegg Smith, Samantha Cukier and David H. Jernigan.
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Drug and Alcohol Dependence, Sept. 2014