Are we addicted to alcohol advertising?

This article is provided by the Health and Temperance Department of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

Christine Lubinski is the Washington, D. C., representative of the National Council on Alcoholism.

In 1984 U.S. citizens consumed the equivalent of 2.65 gallons of absolute alcohol per person. That means on the average they drank the equivalent of 50 gallons of beer or 20 gallons of table wine or more than 4 gallons of whiskey, gin, or vodka per person in one year!

In the United States, alcohol use is responsible for at least 98,000 deaths and approximately $130 billion in economic costs each year. At least 10 percent of all the deaths in the United States are related to alcohol misuse, including nearly half of all homicides, suicides, and deaths in automobile crashes. Alcohol-related family problems afflict about one fourth of American homes. 1 Alcohol is America's number one drug problem.

But while alcohol consumption is a public health problem of epidemic pro portions, it gets short shrift in media and policy discussions that address drugs. There has been little scrutiny of alcohol's availability or of its contribution to drug morbidity and mortality. And it's not only government and the newsrooms of major broadcast and newspaper organizations that have in effect denied alcohol's share in the responsibility for this nation's drug problems. Scores of homes have done so as well. It is not unusual for parents to sigh with relief that their adolescent children are "only" drinking and have yet to manifest any involvement with illicit drugs.

Why this widespread denial of the nature and extent of alcohol problems? Alcohol is very big business. In the United States alone, alcohol industry revenues exceed $65 billion a year. Obviously, an industry of this size has substantial political clout with which to advance and protect its interests.

Through advertising and marketing, this multinational industry creates appealing images of alcoholic beverages and seeks to limit public recognition of alcohol as a drug and a disease promoter. In the United States the industry spends approximately $2 billion each year on advertising and promotions2 —more than $800 million on television advertising alone. In 1988 breweries in the United States paid for about 10 percent of all sponsorships of athletic, music, cultural, and other special events. They fund activities that generally attract large audiences of youth under the legal age for drinking—activities such as sports events, rock concerts, and college spring break promotions.

Beer and wine ads depict alcohol products as the ultimate reward for a football game well played or a job well done; they associate the consumption of beer and wine with financial success and romance; and in some cases, they explicitly encourage heavy drinking. Creativity, big money, and more than a little finesse formulate the message that in order to enjoy a sports event or a night on the town, one must drink alcoholic beverages.

Dr. Jean Kilbourne, international lecturer on alcohol advertising, argues that advertising is essentially myth-making. Rather than offering concrete information about a product, advertising establishes an image for the product. According to Kilbourne, "alcohol advertising does create a climate in which dangerous attitudes toward alcohol are presented as normal, appropriate, and innocuous.

Most important, alcohol advertising spuriously links alcohol with precisely those attributes and qualities—happiness, wealth, prestige, sophistication, success, maturity, athletic ability, virility, creativity, sexual satisfaction, and others —that the misuse of alcohol usually diminishes and destroys." 3

Ads associate drinking with driving

Despite serious public concern over the death and injury linked to drinking and driving, some ads still associate drinking with driving and with other high-risk activities. The American Automobile Association's Foundation for Traffic Safety reports that a 1987 study by media communication specialists concluded that beer commercials link drinking and driving through merging references to beer with images of moving cars, and through linking the pleasures of beer with the pleasures of driving. Moreover, the report found that beer ads glorify risk-taking and challenge-seeking behavior and disregard the destructive or potentially dangerous consequences of one's own actions. 4

This report represents a serious indictment of the beer industry and the dangerous socialization of the nation's young through advertising—an educational process that undoubtedly contributes to the 10,000 deaths annually of American young people 16-24 years old through alcohol-related drownings, suicides, violent injuries, homicides, and injuries from fire. 5 These findings also support an earlier study that found that adolescents and young adults more heavily exposed to alcohol ads on TV and in magazines are more likely to perceive drinking as attractive, acceptable, and rewarding than are those who have been less exposed. 6

In the United States today children begin using alcohol at about 12 years of age. 7 Surveys report that as many as one third of 10-year-olds report peer pressure to drink alcohol. 8

Unfortunately, advertising remains a more significant educator about alcohol than parents or the school system. Only half of the 10-year-olds surveyed knew that beer, wine, and liquor are drugs, while 87 percent knew that marijuana is a drug. And knowledge of alcohol's nature decreases rather than increases with age. Even fewer 14-year-olds identified beer, wine, and liquor as drugs than did their 10-year-old counterparts, and com pared with the younger group, 29 percent fewer of them thought daily use of alcohol was harmful.9

Alcohol advertising has but one purpose—to promote the sale of the product. Each week television reaches 90 per cent of teenagers and 92 percent of children in the United States. 10 As the population of the United States ages and alcohol consumption declines, the alcoholic beverage industry has an economic stake in recruiting young people who will drink heavily. Despite recent increases in federal support for drug education in the public school system and increasing public recognition of the seriousness of alcohol problems among youth, alcohol ads continue to misrepresent drinking as normal, glamorous, and consequence-free.

Targeting women and minorities

The heaviest drinking group, young White males, reduce consumption as they age and are not replaced as population growth stabilizes. So alcohol manufacturers have targeted women and ethnic and racial minorities to maintain their profit margins.

The alcoholic beverage industry, after excluding women from ad campaigns until the mid-1950s, now targets women with ads that associate drinking with life styles characterized by independence, good health, and professional accomplishment. Alcohol manufacturers copy the tobacco industry in associating self-actualization for women with an increase in risk-taking behavior.

Alcohol ads woo health-conscious consumers, especially women, by positioning alcohol as a health food. 11 Beer and wine cooler television commercials feature women in gymnastics or aerobic garb topping off a rigorous routine with "a cold one." Unfortunately, a number of publishers of women's magazines have been quick to welcome and to accommodate the industry's sudden and vigorous interest in American women as consumers, presumably to maintain or increase advertising revenues for their publications.

African-Americans have also become an important market for the alcoholic beverage industry and a major target for pro-drinking marketing messages. According to a recent report on the state of minority health in America, Blacks "suffer disproportionately from the health consequences of alcohol. . . [and] appear to be at a disproportionately high risk for certain alcohol-related problems." 12 In a 1985 survey by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and the Minnesota Institute on Black Chemical Abuse, health professionals who work with Black alcoholics identified poverty as the most important factor influencing drinking. 13 Regrettably, federal and state governments have made very few expenditures to address alcohol problems in the Black community. According to the CSPI, "the lion's share of what is being said and done about alcohol in the Black community consists of a steady diet of alluring commercial marketing campaigns designed to promote alcohol consumption among Blacks." 14

Many television ads for alcoholic beverages use Black spokespersons, and often they associate alcohol consumption with machismo, economic opportunity, and access to power. It is cruelly ironic that an addictive and potentially enslaving drug should be offered as a substitute for the success and economic stability that so frequently elude African-Americans as a result of poverty and circumscribed opportunity.

In addition to these themes, the alcoholic beverage industry uses ads to pro mote alcohol products consumed predominantly in the Black community. High alcohol-content malt liquors are marketed almost exclusively to African- Americans and Latinos. These products generally contain as much as 20 percent more alcohol than regular beers.

Billboard advertising for alcoholic beverages is ubiquitous in many low-income minority neighborhoods. In 1985, nine of 10 leading billboard advertisers were tobacco or alcoholic beverage companies.

The alcoholic beverage industry claims that advertising is aimed at encouraging people who already drink to switch brands and to support moderate drinking. Given the demographics of alcohol consumption, however, industry support for low-level consumption is unlikely. Heavier drinkers (those consuming more than 14 drinks per week) constitute 10 percent of the drinking population, but account for half of the alcohol consumed in the nation.15

Robert Hammond, director of the Alcohol Research Information Service, estimates that if all 105 million American drinkers of legal age consumed the official "moderate" amount of alcohol—the equivalent of about two drinks per day —the industry would suffer "a whopping 40 percent decrease in the sale of beer, wine, and distilled spirits, based on 1981 sales figures." 16 Heavy drinkers are clearly the alcoholic beverage industry's best customers. Too often these prime targets for alcohol promotion are alcoholics and adolescents who are at substantial risk for alcohol-related trauma as well as addiction.

Censoring the truth

Alcohol advertising's domination of mass communications serves an additional insidious role. The dependence of media outlets, both broadcast and print, on revenues derived from alcohol ads encourages censorship of information about alcohol's health and safety risks and about the industry's efforts to recruit new users and to promote heavier drinking by those who already use it. Media coverage of drug problems routinely avoids discussion of alcohol.

In her testimony to the United States Senate, Kilbourne documented numerous instances in which alcohol advertising restrained magazines' and news pro grams' discussions of alcohol's contribution to morbidity and mortality. According to Kilbourne, alcohol advertising "drastically inhibits honest public discussion of the problem in the media and creates a climate in which alcohol is seen as entirely benign." 17

How can we address the large role alcohol advertising plays in nurturing alcohol problems, glorifying drug use, and contributing to widespread denial of the nature and breadth of alcohol problems that individuals, families, congregations, and our society at large are facing?  The policy arena presents us with our greatest challenge. It is not difficult to persuade ordinary citizens that alcohol advertising counters efforts to reduce alcohol and other drug problems. To date, however, efforts to persuade policymakers to restrict alcohol advertising have been largely unsuccessful.

In the United States Congress, where thousands of bills are introduced every session, advocates have been unable to garner as many as a dozen cosponsors of legislation to require equal time for health and safety messages about alcohol. The same legislators who seriously propose the invasion of Third World countries to address drug trafficking do not want even to consider restrictions on advertising beer and wine. The alcoholic beverage industry, advertising agencies, and the major media companies have a vested interest in maintaining a laissez-faire policy in regard to alcohol advertising. And all have considerable political influence.

In 1984-1985, the CSPI led a spirited campaign to address alcohol advertising. A petition drive calling for equal time for health messages about alcohol when alcohol ads are aired or a ban on broadcast advertising of alcoholic beverages attracted well over 1 million signatures. Despite enormous media attention and two Congressional hearings, no legislative action was taken, nor were any legislative proposals seriously considered.

Recommended restrictions on advertising

Nevertheless, serious interest in restrictive measures continues to grow. The United States is in year three of an officially declared "war on drugs," and it's becoming increasingly difficult to deny alcohol's role in drug problems. In 1988, as a part of comprehensive anti-drug legislation, Congress enacted a law mandating warning labels on all alcoholic beverage containers. And in that same year, despite serious attempts to exclude alcohol completely as a subject of discussion, the White House Conference for a Drug-free America adopted a resolution calling for restrictions on alcohol advertising directed at youth.

In December of 1988, over the protests of broadcasters and advertisers, C. Everett Koop, the widely respected U.S. surgeon general, chaired a workshop on drunk driving that recommended restrictions on alcohol advertising and marketing.19 Preliminary recommendations related to advertising include:

• matching the level of alcohol advertising exposure with equivalent exposure for effective pro-health and safety messages;

• elimination of alcohol advertising from college campuses;

• elimination of alcohol advertising at and promotion and sponsorship of public events where the majority of the audience is under the legal drinking age;

• elimination of official sponsorship of athletic events by the alcohol beverage industry;

• elimination of advertising that portrays activities that are dangerous when combined with alcohol use;

• elimination of the use of celebrities who have a strong appeal to youth in alcohol advertising and promotion;

• elimination of tax deductions for alcohol advertising and promotion other than price and product advertising;

• and requirement of warning labels in all alcohol advertising. 20 These recommendations represent some of the most promising policy measures to address alcohol advertising.

U. S. citizens have not been alone in pressing for restrictive legislation regarding the advertising of alcoholic beverages. A quick review of the literature reveals serious concern about the influence of advertising on alcohol and other drug problems in numerous countries, including France, Australia, Austria, Nigeria, Canada, and Switzerland. Finland, Sweden, and the Soviet Union prohibit alcohol advertising.

A 1985 public opinion poll in France found that 40 percent of respondents viewed alcohol advertising as excessive and having serious impact on youth and the unemployed. Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed thought that some limits should be placed on advertising, and 21 percent thought alcohol ads should be banned. 21 In Australia, proposals regarding alcohol advertising have included a ban on "lifestyle" alcohol advertising in all media; a modification of broadcast standards prohibiting alcohol advertising before 9:30 p.m.; and the establishment of a system of coregulation in which the government assumes a watchdog role with active participation by non-industry groups. 22

Efforts to restrict alcohol advertising pit public health concerns very directly against the economic interests of powerful institutions. If we are to affect seriously the way the alcoholic beverage industry does business in nations around the globe, we must organize and we must build constituencies. Though doing so will take some effort, the very pervasiveness of alcohol problems lends itself to the development of powerful coalitions. Advocates from alcoholism organizations, public health, medicine, youth groups, the religious community, public safety activists, women's and ethnic minority organizations—all have a stake in reducing the level of alcohol problems.

Alcoholism and other alcohol-related problems are complex and afford no single or easy solution. Restricting or even eliminating alcohol advertising will not end these problems. But such action will provide a greater balance in the kind of information the public receives about alcohol. And efforts to restrict or eliminate alcohol advertising will enable individuals to make informed choices about their use of alcoholic beverages without the undue influence of the glitz and misinformation so characteristic of alcohol ads today.

1 "Alcohol-Related Family Problems Strike
One Fourth of U.S. Homes," Gallup Poll, April
1987.

2 Alcohol Advertising Facts (Washington, D. C. :
Center for Science in the Public Interest, 1989).

3 Alcohol Advertising: A Call for Congressional
Action (statement of Jean Kilbourne, Ed. D., to the
Committee on Governmental Affairs of the United
States Senate, June 29, 1988).

4 N. Postman, C. Nystrom, L. Strate, and C.
Weingartner, Myths, Men, and Beer: An Analysis of
Beer Commercials on Broadcast Television, 1987
(Falls Church, Va.: AAA Foundation for Traffic
Safety, 1987). The study recommends immediate
action to eliminate this genre of lifestyle ads for
beer, either through a complete ad ban, through
limiting ad content to product identification, or at
the very least, through prohibiting in beer ads the
use of motor vehicles and references to driving and
speed.

5 U.S. DHHS; NIAAA, Public Health Ser
vice, "Questions and Answers: Teenage Alcohol
Use and Abuse," Prevention Plus: Involving Schools,
Parents, and the Community in Alcohol and Drug
Education, Publication No. CADM841256(Rockville,
Md,:1983),p. xii.

6 Atkins and M. Block, Content and Effects of
Alcohol Advertising (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, U.S. Government
[Report of Michigan State University study,
1981]).

7 N. P. Gordon and A. McAlister, "Promoting
Adolescent Health," Adolescent Drinking: Issues
and Research (New York: Academic Press, 1982),
p. 204.

8 T. Borton and L. Johnson, The Weekly
Reader National Survey on Drugs and Drinking
(Middletown, Conn.: Field Publications, Spring
1987), pp. 17-21.

9 Metropolitan Life and Affiliated Companies,
"Alcohol Use Among Children and Adolescents,"
Statistical Bulletin 68, No. 4 (October-December
1987): 11.

10 Project SMART pamphlet (Washington,
D.C.: Center for Science in the Public Interest,
1985).

11 "The Light Beer Diet—Brew Away Pounds
Fast," Harper's Bazaar, October 1986.

12 Report of the Secretary's Task Force on Black
and Minority Health, HHS Publication (August
1985), vol. 1, p. 130.

13 Center for Science in the Public Interest/
Minnesota Institute on Black Chemical Abuse (CSPI/
MBCA) questionnaire (November 1985—January
1986).

14 G. Hacker, R. Collins, M. Jacobson, Marketing
Booze to Blacks (Washington, D.C.: Center for
Science in the Public Interest, 1987).

15 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
Sixth Special Report to the U.S. Congress on
Akohol and Health (Rockville, Md.: National Institute
on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, January 1987).


16 R. Hammond, "Moderate Alcohol Use
Threat to Liquor Industry," Alcoholism, January-
February 1983, p. 63.


17 "Alcohol Advertising: A Call for Congressional
Action" (statement of Jean Kilbourne,
Ed.D., to the Committee on Governmental
Affairs, United States Senate, June 29, 1988), p. 10.

18 "The Battle Is Brewing: A Campaign Against
the Broadcasting of Wine and Beer Ads," Washington
Post, Mar. 24, 1985, p. 4.

19 "Koop Panel Stirs Controversy Over Alcohol
Ads," Impact: U. S. News and Research for the Wine,
Spirits, and Beer Executive, Feb. 1, 1989.


20 Surgeon General's Workshop on Drunk Driving,
Panel B, Advertising and Marketing, draft
recommendations (Washington, D.C.:Dec. 14, 1988).

21 "Public Attitudes Toward Advertising of
Alcoholic Beverages: A Poll Taken for the High
Committee," HCEIA Information 2 (1985): 8, 9.


22 D. Dunoon, Alcohol Advertising on Television: A
Submission in Reply to the Australian Broadcasting
Tribunal's Discussion Paper (March 1983).


Ministry reserves the right to approve, disapprove, and delete comments at our discretion and will not be able to respond to inquiries about these comments. Please ensure that your words are respectful, courteous, and relevant.

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Christine Lubinski is the Washington, D. C., representative of the National Council on Alcoholism.

November 1989

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