CI5472 Teaching Film, Television, and Media

Module 6: Studying Advertising

Advertising and Alcohol/Tobacco

Advertisers also promote alcohol and tobacco (in magazines/billboards) in ways that appeal to adolescents. A study of alcohol advertising in magazines and adolescent readership published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Garfield, Chung, & Rathouz, 2003) found that from 1997-2001 in 35 of 48 major US magazines there were 9148 advertisements; 13% were for beer, 5% for wine, and 82% for liquor. Analysis of those magazines more like to have an adolescent audience found that beer and liquor ads were most likely to be read by adolescents. For every 1 million underage readers ages 12-19 of a magazine, there were 1.6 times more beer advertisements and 1.3 times more liquor advertisements.

The National Institute on Media and the Family noted that:

Television advertising changes attitudes about drinking. Young people report more positive feelings about drinking and their own likelihood to drink after viewing alcohol ads (Austin, 1994; Grube, 1994).
Fifty-six percent of students in grades 5 through 12 say that alcohol advertising encourages them to drink (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2001).

A study conducted by The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (click here for Marketing Gallery for examples of TV alcohol ads) Youth Exposure to Alcohol Ads on Television, 2002,
found that there was an increase of 39% in TV alcohol advertising from 2001 to 2002. Adolescents viewed two beer and liquor ads for every three seen by adults. All 15 most popular shows for adolescents had alcohol ads.

A study by The Alcohol and Public Health Research Unit of New Zealand found that many adolescents view alcohol television ads. The more positive their reaction to these ads, they more likely they were to consume alcohol and to have higher annual alcohol consumption.

Education Media Foundation video: Deadly Persuasion: The Advertising of Alcohol & Tobacco

Jean Kilbourne, “Targets of Alcohol Advertising”

Education Media Foundation video: Spin the Bottle: Sex, Lies & Alcohol

Media Education Foundation: (click on: Deconstructing an Alcohol Ad).

The alcohol industry claims that it has launched ads designed to discourage underage drinking. However, a study by The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth indicated that, in 2001, adolescents were 93 times more likely to see an ad promoting alcohol than an industry ad discouraging underage drinking. (Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, 2003, “Drops in the Bucket, Alcohol Industry “Responsibility” Advertising on Television in 2001,” Washington, DC: Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth).

There have been a number of policy recommendations related to reducing alcohol advertising, including education programs. The Alcohol Epidemiology Program at the University of Minnesota recommends the following:

Banning ads on buses, trains, kiosks, billboards and supermarket carts, and in bus shelters, schools, and theme parks.
Banning or limiting advertising and sponsorship at community events such as festivals, parties, rodeos, concerts, and sporting events. (1)
Banning advertising in areas surrounding schools, residential areas, faith organizations, etc.
Restricting or banning TV and/or radio alcohol commercials. (1)
Restricting alcohol advertising in newspapers and/or on the Internet.

They noted that Oakland, California, in 1998, adopted a strict ordinance prohibiting alcohol ads on billboards in residential areas and near schools. The ordinance also banned alcohol advertising within three blocks of recreation centers, churches, and licensed day care facilities. A court challenge by the billboard industry was unsuccessful.

Institute of Medicine, (2004), Reducing Underage Drinking: A Collective Responsibility (online book)

Tobacco ads. While television tobacco ads have been banned, they are still prevalent in magazines, billboards, and at sports events. And, tobacco companies pay movie producers to include smoking in films. A study conducted by the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, University of California, San Francisco, found that of the 776 movies released between 1999 and 2003, almost 80 percent of PG-13 rated films, and almost half of PG and G-rated films included smoking. And, the total number of films for young people with smoking actually increased from 1999 to 2003.

Polanksy, J., & Glantz, S. (2004). First-Run Smoking Presentations in U.S. Movies 1999-2003. San Fransisco: Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, University of California, San Francisco,

Given the prevalence of smoking in films, often in ways that glamorize smoking, The American Legacy Foundation has proposed steps to eliminate smoking in films:

Give new movies with smoking an R rating, with the exception of when tobacco use and its dangers and consequences are accurately portrayed, or when it is necessary to portray a real historical figure.
Certify no pay-offs by posting a certificate in movie credits declaring that no talent or members of the production team received anything in exchange for using or displaying tobacco.
Require strong anti-smoking ads to run before any film with any tobacco presence, regardless of its rating.
Stop identifying tobacco brands in any movie scene.

The Foundation notes that its national American Smoking and Health Survey (ASHES) survey
results indicated strong popular support for adopting restrictions on smoking in films:

74 percent of people support showing brief public service announcements in theaters to counteract the influence of smoking in movies.
84 percent of people said that movie producers and actors should not be allowed to accept money or other items of value in exchange for including smoking in movies.
76 percent of people said that cigarette brands (names and logos) should not be allowed to appear in movies.

Why People Smoke (product placements in films)

Google: lots of links to smoking product placements in films

In 2000, The American Legacy Foundation also launched a series of hard-hitting, documentary style anti-smoking ads, described as the “Infect truth®” campaign. These ads focus on the deceptions employ ed in the tobacco industry’s marketing strategies; it also focuses on challenging the influence of peer pressure to smoke as a social status symbol. And, the ads employ clever techniques to draw viewers attention. For example, one ad shows adolescents putting up mannequins on a street as ''replacement smokers'' who will replace smokers who have died; the ads closes with a young girl talking about her father who died from smoking and that no one can replace him.
The “Infect truth®” site

The American Legacy Foundation

Despite an increased use of anti-smoking ads, a relatively high percentage of adolescents continue to smoke. A study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Georgetown University found that impulsive or risk-orientated adolescents, characterized as "novelty-seeking," were more receptive to tobacco advertising and were more likely to start smoking than adolescents who were less oriented to “novelty-seeking” practices.

Another study (Straub, Hills, Thompson, & Moscicki, 2003) found that the variables most likely to predict 9th graders’ intention to smoke were recognition of brand of favorite advertisement, willingness to use or wear tobacco-branded products, stress, and having friends who smoke, while 9th graders who agreed with anti-tobacco advertising were less inclined to smoke.

Education Media Foundation video: Pack of Lies: The Advertising of Tobacco

Webquest: Smoking Awareness

Webquest: Tobacco Detectives

Webquest: Dangers of Tobacco Use

Webquest: Will You be a Smoker?

Webquest: Should Smoking be Illegal?

Webquest: The Truth about Tobacco

A whole unit on smoking ads, along with some examples of anti-smoking ads.