Picture Me Drinking: Alcohol-Related Posts by Instagram Influencers Popular Among Adolescents and Young Adults

They rejected simplistic messages and understood that celebrity behaviour, including drinking, is largely constructed by editors and publicists to ‘tell a story’ and sell products. Parents’ and friends’ attitudes and behaviours were better predictors of young people’s alcohol use. Celebrity behaviour was unlikely to influence alcohol consumption directly.

Studies have shown exposure to smoking and drinking increases the risk for youth initiation. Factors and tobacco company behaviors that led the Surgeon General to conclude the Big Tobacco caused teens to smoke and later develop worse health outcomes for it were set out in a 2012 report. The same criteria showed smoking triggers cancer and tobacco marketing makes youths smoke.

A second limitation is that we looked at the content of the influencers’ profiles, and did not link this to the responses (e.g., drinking behavior) of teens directly. We argue that our study is an essential first step, because to understand the effects of a certain phenomenon, it is important to first gain insight into the extent of the problem. Now this step has been taken, a next phase is to directly examine the effects of influencers’ alcoholposts on drinking among adolescents and young adults. Although we expect these effects to be even stronger than posts by peers, future research needs to ascertain whether this is indeed the case. In the UK we have a co- and self-regulatory system, where alcohol companies have a degree of control over how the industry is regulated.

Male-orientated media presented drinking as a way to shape masculine identity and form friendships. That targeted towards women focused on glamour and celebrity, while also suggesting that drinking was seen as less acceptable in women. In every aspect analyzed, the influence of tobacco and alcohol advertising on teens was mirrored. ‘The conclusion the association between exposure to tobacco advertising and adolescent tobacco use are causal allowed for policy development that justified further regulation of tobacco advertising aimed at youth,’ said Dr Weitzman.

The need to gain insight in influencers’ display of alcoholposts is increased even further because in many countries regulations state that alcohol advertising is not to target minors. This is even more disturbing because research shows that influencer marketing elicits less resistance to the ad message than traditional advertisements do (de Vries et al., 2012). We found that mainly lifestyle influencers posted about alcohol, and that they solely do this in a positive way (e.g., by showing laughing people), and often show a social context (i.e., showing one or more persons). This is very much in line with earlier content analyses of peers’ alcoholposts on social media, in which it has been stressed that alcoholposts are positive and social in nature (Hendriks et al., 2018b). It is interesting that these seemingly inherent characteristics of alcoholposts on social media are similar for peer-to-peer posts as for influencers’ posts.

Children, young people and alcohol: how they learn and how to prevent excessive use

Alcohol advertising is banned in India, but the industry there finds other ways to promote alcohol, and many alcohol outlets were also located close to schools and colleges in Mumbai, ensuring easy access. Policies are required to better protect youth from alcohol availability and misuse. The alcohol and advertising industries have powerful lobbies to resist legislative changes, but the views, perspectives and lived realities of the public, particularly youth, are less well heard. We are calling for a thorough overhaul of the way alcohol marketing is regulated – so that alcohol producers and sellers are clear about how they can and can’t promote their products, and consumers know when they can expect the regulators to step in. Millions of people suffer every day as a result of alcohol – that’s why it is so important that we have evidence-based policies in place to make sure it is marketed effectively. This report investigates the influence of friendship groups on teenagers’ drinking.

Alcohol is marketed not just through TV, cinema, and billboard ads, but also through product placement in TV shows, sponsorship of sports events, merchandise, placement within supermarkets, on social media, and even on the packaging itself. All of these various elements of the marketing mix support and depend on each other. Alcohol companies market their products in order to increase sales, whether through reaching more customers or getting existing customers to purchase more. Research has found that alcohol companies are often reliant on heavy drinkers for their profits and will target their advertising towards younger drinkers to encourage them to become the “heavy-using loyalists of tomorrow”. Fact sheets Our fact sheets set out the latest evidence to help you find out more about alcohol.

Sourz shot ad blasted for being too ‘youth orientated’

This may suggest that posts by peers are actually quite similar to posts by influencers, thereby increasing feelings of similarity between the “normal” social media users and those of celebrity status. This study is the first to illustrate how influencers communicate about alcohol on Instagram. Furthermore, although quite a few posts showed alcohol brands, only a couple of these posts disclosed this content as an advertisement, and even fewer gave an educational slogan. There is thus a lot to be concerned about in this context, especially since many minors can be exposed to such alcoholposts, potentially leading to increased drinking among this vulnerable age group. We therefore advice future researchers to further explore this issue, and suggest that adjustments in legislation for alcohol advertisements are necessary to effectively account for the context of social media. Although evidence exists of peers sharing alcohol-related content, it is not clear how often influencers who are popular among minors post about alcohol.

  • The same techniques were used by tobacco companies to lure young smokers, warn scientists.
  • Parents have little control of the messages their children see outside the house.
  • Compared with the influence of friends, young people’s total media usage and celebrity behaviour did not seem to have a direct influence on their drinking.
  • In fact, it has been shown that more than one-third of 14–17 year olds look deliberatively for influencer accounts when they are looking for product information .
  • News media can contribute to health promotion by publicising alcohol information campaigns or representing the views of public health professionals.

The first and foremost finding was that a large majority (i.e., 63.5%) of the influencers had at least one alcoholpost among their most recent 100 posts. Furthermore, although on average these influencers posted three alcoholposts, there were some influencers who posted 15–16 alcoholposts. This massive exposure to influencers’ alcoholposts is very worrisome, especially because influencers are new kinds of celebrities that young people nowadays frequently aspire to become themselves . When those who are vulnerable, such as children and people in recovery, are exposed to marketing, it can also increase harm. Research has found that exposure to alcohol advertising is linked to children drinking from an earlier age and in a riskier way. 82% of young people in one research study recalled seeing at least one form of alcohol marketing in the past month.

This study explored how alcohol is represented in television programmes, magazines and SNS used by young people, their interpretation of these images and messages, and the potential influence of the media on young consumers. It also sought insights from media professionals on the production and perceived influence of depictions of alcohol, and the potential role of the media in health promotion. An analysis was conducted of internal marketing documents from four major alcohol producers relating to four alcohol brands in the UK. This was undertaken for a UK House of Commons Health Select Committee investigation into the conduct of the alcohol industry. This claim stands in opposition to a wealth of international evidence that has demonstrated both immediate and longer-term effects of alcohol advertising on individual consumption and on total, population-wide, levels of consumption.

How regulation works

However, the study showed that as young people tend to take in media output not specifically targeted at their age group, such messages are countered by depictions of alcohol in these other sources. Parents and the family were believed to be the main sources of information that young people would turn to if they required information on alcohol. Many young people had good insights into how the media represent alcohol.

Third, although a fair amount of (19.5%) alcoholposts clearly showed an alcohol brand, only a few of these posts disclosed this content as an advertisement, and even fewer gave an educational slogan. Fourth, posts with sponsorship disclosures had fewer likes and comments than posts without such disclosures. The first and fourth findings were confirmed in a second study among minors.

The more exposure the greater the consumption, reports the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. The researchers also found neighborhoods with large numbers of tobacco retailers expose youngsters to more tobacco advertising and make it easier to buy cigarettes. Some 60 percent of high school seniors in the US drink, and they tend to binge and black out more than adults, who are more likely to sip or restrain themselves to a glass of wine with dinner. It also provided research from a Yahoo survey that found nearly half of respondents over the age of 50 used emoticons in everyday communication to back up its argument that emoticons were used by all ages. The creative used an emoticon when talking about the bright colours worn by the ‘X Factor’ stars and claimed, “it’s totally an homage to our new Sourz Rasperrby flavour ;)”.

Young people are influenced by their social environment, which includes their parents, peers and intimate partners. Blog Find the latest alcohol research and news, tips to help you cut down, stories from people who have experienced alcohol harm and so much more. News and views Read the latest press releases and commentary on all things alcohol from Alcohol Change UK. In a post hoc additional study among minors, we investigated whether similar results would be obtained regarding RQ1 and RQ4.

alcohol ads targeting youth

In Scotland there has been more progress, with licensing legislation requiring alcohol to be only placed in one section of a shop or supermarket. Some local authorities have taken local action to ban advertising in public spaces such as bus shelters. However, the self-regulatory system means that restrictions on advertising content are not actively monitored by the large regulatory organisations. Issues are only retrospectively addressed if and when an advert or label is reported to the regulator, by which time it may not be in circulation anymore. The media is important in the lives of young people, who have access to a variety of media devices and content. They encounter a range of alcohol depictions that may influence their attitudes to alcohol and their own drinking.

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Little is known about the effect of non-advertising alcohol depictions and, despite speculation that representations of celebrity alcohol use influence young people’s drinking behaviour, there is a lack of evidence to support such claims. In terms of “appeal”, marketers should be wary of appealing to typical insecurities such as attractiveness, being “cool”, social acceptance or belonging. Special care, too, should be taken to avoid the use of music or styles of music that are popular with children and teenagers. The survey found 77% support a ban on advertising alcohol to children and young people, with 70% supporting a ban on TV ads before 9pm, and 72% a ban on cinema ads for films for under 18s, the legal drinking age. A number of studies across the world have criticised drinks groups of exposing young people to advertising, particularly with the rise of advertising on social media in recent years.

  • Many young people had a good insight into how alcohol is represented in the media, and why it is represented in particular ways.
  • Neither young people nor media professionals believed that health-related messages about alcohol are newsworthy or of entertainment value.
  • Detailed studies have found that the more young people are exposed to alcohol advertising, the earlier they initiate drinking and the more frequently and heavily they drink.
  • However, the study showed that as young people tend to take in media output not specifically targeted at their age group, such messages are countered by depictions of alcohol in these other sources.
  • ” by Rebecca Searle; Daisy Alston and David P. French is published in the Journal Alcohol and Alcoholism.

Drinks company Maxxium has been reprimanded by the advertising watchdog for breaching regulations in its marketing of its Sourz shot brand. Taken together, the conclusions of this analysis and our latest survey, along with the comparatively small number of breaches eco sober house complaints judged by the ASA, indicate that co-regulation of UK television alcohol adverts is ineffective and requires reconsideration. So it is perhaps unsurprising that the ASA’s studies report over 99% compliance of advertisements across all media with the BCAP Code.

If it is indeed the case that influencers advertise for alcohol brands , then this suggests that the alcohol industry has found a way to circumvent legislation and reach minors . Although some suggest that internet age filters or entry pages are good ways of limiting exposure to underage alcohol marketing, evidence suggests that these filters do not work effectively and still allow minors to see alcohol ads (Jones et al., 2014). This stresses the need for new legislation that also incorporates the complicated new world of social media. The goal of this study was therefore to investigate influencers’ alcoholposts on one of the most popular social media, i.e., Instagram.

Detailed studies have found that the more young people are exposed to alcohol advertising, the earlier they initiate drinking and the more frequently and heavily they drink. Compared with the influence of friends, young people’s total media usage and celebrity behaviour did not seem to have a direct influence on their drinking. Many young people had a good insight into how alcohol is represented in the media, and why it is represented in particular ways. Hence, in terms of prevention and education policy, inserting simplistic https://sober-home.org/ messages about alcohol harm and accurate images of celebrity intoxication into youth media is likely to be ineffective. Statistical analysis of survey data showed that young people’s exposure to media coverage of alcohol usage and their attachment to celebrities (and alcohol-drinking celebrities in particular) were not important risk factors for their own alcohol consumption. Instead, estimates of their friends’ drinking and the perceived acceptability of drinking by friends were found to be much better predictors.

The views of media professionals on the production of alcohol-related content and the potential role of the media in health promotion regarding alcohol use. And the researchers found exposure to tobacco and alcohol advertising and teen knowledge, attitudes, initiation, and continued use of the products are extraordinarily similar. Alcohol marketing in the UK is informally overseen by the alcohol and advertising industries themselves, and in special cases Ofcom, a government body. Another 57% of the 12,000 surveyed support a ban on alcohol advertising in public spaces such as streets, parks and on public transport. Parents have little control of the messages their children see outside the house. Over three-quarters of Brits want laws to limit the exposure of children and young people to alcohol advertising amid record alcohol deaths across the country.

This is in line with studies that suggest that people can become negative toward the origin of a message (e.g., the influencer) if they see a sponsorship disclosure (e.g., Boerman et al., 2015). This touches upon some practical implications, because for influencers it can be difficult how to communicate with their followers about branded content. A potential solution would be to stimulate (e.g., potentially reinforced by Instagram itself) every influencer who is being paid in one way or another for a post to disclose this clearly in that post. This is in line with new legislation in some countries (e.g., Germany; Knitter, 2019) in which it is obligatory for all influencers to disclose a post as advertising if they have received a form of compensation for it.

Young people are subject to a variety of media representations of alcohol which, along with other factors, may influence their drinking behaviour and attitudes to alcohol. Much research has examined the influence of alcohol marketing (e.g. advertising) on young people’s drinking, but less has explored the influence and interpretation of more subtle representations of alcohol within entertainment media. One alternative is the French loi evin, which bans the advertisement of alcoholic drinks on television and specifies what features of alcoholic drinks may be advertised in print media.

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