Alcohol Ads Targeted at Youth

Teens See More Alcohol Ads Than Adults, Study Says

The alcohol industry is not exactly practicing what it preaches when it comes to targeting underaged drinkers with advertising, according to a report by Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University.

The Distillers' own nonprofit Century Council is dedicated to fighting underage drinking and drunk driving, it says, but the truth is many of the alcohol industry's advertisement seems to be focused on the youth market.

Youths ages 12 to 20 see 45 percent more beer ads in magazines, and 27 percent more liquor ads than adults, according to the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth report released last week.

The report said that 25 different brands of alcoholic beverages placed all of their advertising in publications with "substantial youth readership."

"America's parents should be disturbed by these findings," Jim O'Hara, the center's executive director, told The Washington Post. "They aren't seeing these ads but their children are because that's where the industry is putting them -- in the magazines their children read."

In 1999 the Federal Trade Commission recommended that the industry, which regulates itself on advertising, adopt stricter guidelines. "We have shown that the industry is falling far short of the kind of steps that the FTC said should be taken to protect youth," he said.

The study said certain brands were more targeted at the youth market. Teens saw nearly 80 percent more advertisements than adults for Heineken and Fosters beer, the report found. They only saw about eight percent more Budweiser ads, however.

The "alcopop" advertising was definitely more targeted at underaged drinkers, according to the report. Teens saw twice as many ads as adults for Kahlua Black Russian Cocktail, and 75 percent more for Doc Otis' Hard Lemon Malt Beverage or Rick's Spiked Lemonade.

Of course alcohol industry officials attacked the study, questioning its methodology and biases. Dan Tearno, of Heineken USA, said the report's definition of a youth-oriented magazine was too strict. He said Heineken only advertises in magazines that have readers old enough to drink.