McGee, 1

Jenaya McGee
Professor Hughes
English 1102
13 May 2015

Advertising Effects of Alcohol: Should It Be Legal

Imagine driving down a dark road at night with nothing ahead of you and the only light
there is, is coming from the headlights of a black Nissan Altima. Out of nowhere, this car speeds
past you and slams into a tree. Later on, the news reports that the driver was a teenager who was
heading home from a party highly intoxicated and has now died. Alcohol is becoming the most
commonly used drug in America. With such a high level of advertising around consumers every
day, it is likely that advertising shapes society. It has been praised by those who view it as
symbolic of the American Dream - the notion that anyone with money can promote a product to
multitudes of consumers. Advertising has been completely condemned by those who despise its
attack on our senses, its assumption of language for use in a world, and its relentless, shameless
mistreatment of cultural icons and values to sell goods and services.
A growing body of research indicates a positive association between alcohol advertising
and alcohol use among young people. Every year kids and teens see close to 20,000
commercials. Of these, approximately 2,000 are for alcoholic beverages. Add to these other
forms of advertising such as magazine ads, billboards, web sites and radio programs and most

McGee, 2

young people will have seen approximately 100,000 alcohol ads by the time they turn 18
("Alcohol Advertising and Kids - Teaching Backgrounder."). Constant exposure to alcohol
products at an early age increases positive expectations about drinking.
Long before the arrival of Old Joe Camel and the Budweiser frogs, critics debated the
ethics of advertising. Critics have argued that the test of ethical communication is whether the
communicators' motives are worthy. In this perspective, advertising can fall considerably short of
an ethical ideal. Advertisers develop ads that make promises they know products cannot deliver.
Cigarettes do not offer high-living pleasure; cars do not make you rich or famous; and making
pancakes and eggs for your children on Sunday morning will not ease your guilt about neglecting
them all week, despite the mournful plea of a Bisquik pancake commercial.
According to the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University,
alcohol companies spend nearly $2 billion every year on advertising in the United States.
Between 2001 and 2007, there were more than 2 million television ads and 20,000 magazine ads
for alcoholic products. This heavy advertising effort leads to significant youth exposure. The
Center analyzed the placements of over 2 million alcohol advertisement placements on television
between 2000 and 2007 and over 19,000 alcohol ads placed in national magazines between 2001
and 2006. In 2007, approximately 20% of television alcohol advertisements, almost all of which
were on cable television, were on programming that youth ages 12 to 20 were more likely to
view than adults of legal drinking age. In fact, alcohol advertising increased 38% between 2001
and 2007 ("Alcohol Advertising and Youth -- AAFP Policies -- AAFP."). For young people, large
and increasing television exposure has unfortunately offset reductions in exposure in magazines
in recent years.

McGee, 3

Advertisers want consumers to develop fantasies onto products in order to hook them on
the image of the brand. From an ethical perspective, advertising is not ethical because advertisers
are not truthful by any means. If the courtesy of the communicators' motives is the standard for
ethical communication, advertising fails. Advertisers intentionally construct fantasies to serve
their clients' needs, not to aid the consumer in living a healthier, happier life.
It is well established that alcohol use plays a substantial role in the three leading causes of
death among teens and young adults: accidental injuries, suicides, and murders. In addition,
many young people begin drinking at a young age. Add to this the engaging, interactive, and
unregulated setting of the Internet, and marketers have a potent mix of platforms from which to
target youth.
Defenders of advertising note that consumers recognize that advertising creates untruths.
They do not expect ads to tell them the way things really are in society. The depictions of the
good life presented in ads carry with them the implied understanding that they are fantasies, not
documented reports. Advertising is entrepreneurship's spirited communication, an effort to give
people an outlet for universal human fantasies.
Child development experts have voiced concerns about the possible links between
children's exposure to alcohol advertising and the development of attitudes about alcohol and
drinking habits. The countless alcohol-related media young people are exposed to reinforce the
idea that alcohol consumption is an everyday activity nothing more than harmless, rebellious
fun.
The judgement on advertising depends on the criteria we use to judge it. Judged in terms
of consequences on society, advertising's effects are ambiguous. Exposure to beautiful people or

McGee, 4

unimaginable wealth may cause dissatisfaction in some consumers (Social Comparison and the
Beauty of Advertising Models: the Role of Motives for Comparison), but can lead others to reach
for loftier goals. Judged strictly on truth-telling criteria, advertising rarely makes product claims
that are evidently false.
The extent of media exposure can also play a role. It is believed that children who watch
more television especially during weekends and prime time are more receptive to the
messaging in alcohol ads than children who are less frequent viewers. This is especially true for
advertisements that appear during favorite shows and sports programming. Alcohol also appears
in two thirds of the most popular programming for teens sports, sitcoms, music videos, horror
movies, and dramas and is most often depicted in a positive light.
It usually exaggerates, hypes up products, and links products with intangible rewards.
"All advertising tells lies, (Leslie Savan) says. However, she notes, "there are little lies and
there are big lies. Little lie: This beer tastes great. Big lie: This beer makes you great" (Leslie
Savan 7).
Advertising will remain an ethically problematic, but necessary, part of industrialist
society. Needed to distinguish and promote products that differ only insignificantly from one
another, advertising keeps the free market economy rolling. It increases demand and allows
companies to sell products, succeed, and employ managers and workers. Advertising plays an
essential, critical role in modern capitalism. From an ethical perspective, advertising remains, as
Schudson puts it, an "uneasy persuasion (Advertising, the Uneasy Persuasion: Its Dubious
Impact on American Society).

McGee, 5

Advertising is such a pervasive part of American culture that is difficult to summon up

images of products that are not influenced by what we have seen in commercials. If you were
asked about Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Herbal Essence, Nike, or cars running the range from
Mustangs to Nissan Altimas to minivans, your mental images would undeniably contain ideas
and pictures garnered from commercials. It is substantially difficult, if not impossible, to call to
mind an advertising-free image of products. This is because advertising plays a critical role in
shaping, reinforcing, and even changing attitudes toward products.
Advertising's power comes from subliminally embedded messages that avoid conscious
awareness. Subliminal communications exert virtually no impact on attitudes. However, the
conscious belief that a message contains a subliminal message can influence attitudes. The
subliminal notion is more fraud than reality, but it persists because people cling to simplistic
ideas about how advertising works.
Advertising works through different trails under low and high involvement. When
viewing ads for low-involvement products, consumers process information superficially.
Recurrence, associational appeals, and celebrity source endorsements are influential.
Association, whose imaginary foundations run the length from traditional conditioning to
availability, is a powerful weapon in advertising campaigns.
Consumers process ads centrally, considering the benefits products offer and the mental
functions that products serve. When directing ads at highly involved consumers, advertisers use
honest messages and symbolic appeals targeted to specific attitude functions.
Although advertising is pervasive, it does not magically alter attitudes. Advertising will
not mold deep-rooted attitudes toward products. It is not apt to change attitudes on the spot.

McGee, 6

Instead, it works gradually, influencing understandings, enhancing positive affect, and engaging
with consumers' values, lifestyles, and even fantasies about products.
Advertising has been condemned by those who see in it a ready way to manipulate
Americans into buying products they do not need. Some argue that advertising teaches a strange
viewpoint of life that puts great reliance in the ability of products to satisfy universal human
desires. Yet even those who criticize advertising ethics acknowledge that people seem to have a
need for the things advertisers promote.

WORKS CITED
Chen, Meng-Jinn, Joel W. Grube, Melina Bersamin, Elizabeth Waiters, and Deborah B. Keefe.
"Alcohol Advertising: What Makes It Attractive to Youth?" Journal of Health
Communication 10.6 (2005): 553-65. Print.
Divinsky, Pamela. "How Is Advertising Influenced by Ethics?" CNN. Cable News Network, 8
July 2008. Web.
Ellickson, Phyllis L., Rebecca L. Collins, Katrin Hambarsoomians, and Daniel F. Mccaffrey.
"Does Alcohol Advertising Promote Adolescent Drinking? Results from a Longitudinal
Assessment." Addiction 100.2 (2005): 235-46. Print.
Mary C. Martin and Patricia F. Kennedy (1994) ,"Social Comparison and the Beauty of
Advertising Models: the Role of Motives For Comparison", in NA - Advances in
Consumer Research Volume 21, eds. Chris T. Allen and Deborah Roedder John, Provo,
UT : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 365-371.
Nash, Avril S., Karen J. Pine, and David J. Messer. "Television Alcohol Advertising: Do Children
Really Mean What They Say?" British Journal of Developmental Psychology 27.1
(2009): 85-104. Print.
Savan, Leslie. "The Bribed Soul: Ads, TV and American Culture." The Bribed Soul: Ads, TV and
American Culture. N.p., n.d. Web.
Schudson, Michael. Advertising, the Uneasy Persuasion: Its Dubious Impact on American
Society. New York: Basic, 1986. Print.

Sellman, J. D., Jennie L. Connor, and Peter R. Joyce. "How to Reduce Alcohol-related Problems
in Adolescents: What Can Parents Do and What Can the Government Do?" 44.9 (2010):
771-73. Academic Search Premier.