Alcohol advertising and youth: a focus-group analysis of what young people find appealing in alcohol advertising.

Young people have well-developed beliefs about alcohol and its effects even before they have any personal experience with drinking (Miller et al., 1990; Goldman et al., 1987; Christiansen et al., [...]
In an effort to ascertain how youths interpret, understand and respond to the themes and images portrayed in television alcohol advertisements, focus-group discussions were conducted with students ages 9-15 in a Northern California community. These discussions revealed that students like lifestyle and image-oriented elements of television beer commercials that are delivered with humor and youth-oriented music and/or characters. Conversely, they dislike product-oriented elements of alcohol commercials. Students identified the main message of television beer commercials as an exhortation to purchase the product based on its quality and its relationship to sexual attractiveness. Participants indicated that beer commercials imply that attractive young adults drink beer to personally rewarding ends. These findings suggest that television beer commercials may need to focus less on youthful lifestyle images and more on the product itself in order to appeal less to young people. KEY WORDS: Television, alcohol advertising, youth.