Alcohol ads promote youth drinking claims Australian report
Alcohol advertising is connected to youth drinking, according to new research from the National Alliance for Action on Alcohol, a group of over 40 health organisations in Australia. The study, which shows that such advertising is reaching children and argues self-regulation by the sector has failed, calls for alcohol marketing to be banned from public property and from areas visible to children and young people. The report also calls for a ban on alcohol advertising during televised sport and for a phasing out of alcohol sponsorship of cultural, musical and sporting events.

Leading health researchers from around the world including Australia have presented the strongest evidence to date that alcohol advertising is at times aggressive and reaching children, and is associated with youth drinking.

The National Alliance for Action on Alcohol, a coalition of more than 40 Australian health and community organisations, say the findings prove that self-regulation by the alcohol industry has failed.

The alliance co-chair, Michael Moore, said the series of peer-reviewed studies should provide enough evidence to federal, state and territory governments to legislate to ban alcohol marketing from public property and locations where young people are likely to see it.

Moore said the commonwealth government should close a regulatory loophole that allows alcohol advertising to be shown during televised sport. Alcohol sponsorship of sport, music and cultural events should also be phased out, Moore said.

“The takeaway from this research is that marketing of alcohol is out of control and it’s time for us to recognise the harm that’s occurring and to take a sensible approach regarding alcohol marketing,” Moore said.

“That would start with excluding marketing from sporting venues and particularly huge sports events like the cricket, Formula One and the Australian Open.”

The banning of tobacco advertising from similar events had shown that it was possible to phase out a lucrative sponsor of sports, he added.

Among the papers published on Thursday in a special edition of the international journal Addiction, was a systemic review led by Curtin University in Perth on the use of social media to market alcohol products.

Researchers reviewed evidence from 47 scientific papers to examine whether digital media marketing messages influenced drinking behaviour, whether youth were being targeted by this advertising, and whether advertising codes were being violated.

“The literature indicated that marketing through digital media is likely to be having an impact upon drinking behaviour, that the marketing activities make use of materials and approaches that are attractive to young people, and that current marketing codes are likely to be undermined by digital media,” the authors concluded.

“Violations of the content guidelines within self-regulated alcohol marketing codes are highly prevalent in certain media.”

Current self-regulatory approaches by the alcohol industry was not protecting vulnerable populations, including children, from alcohol marketing, the paper also found.

The executive officer of the McCusker Centre for Action on Alcohol and Youth, Julia Stafford, said the papers together show that exposure to alcohol marketing impacts on young people’s drinking.

The alcohol industry could not be trusted to regulate their own advertising, and there were more effective options for governments to protect children from alcohol marketing, she said.

“The research confirms yet again that alcohol marketing impacts on young people drinking behaviours,” Stafford told Guardian Australia. “Young people who have higher exposure to alcohol marketing are more likely to start drinking and to drink at risky levels.”

She said alcohol promoters used themes in their advertising campaigns that were attractive to young people, such as sport, celebrities and music. She described digital media as “the new frontier” for alcohol marketing.

“Australia’s weak and limited advertising codes were not designed to effectively deal with how alcohol advertisers are using digital media,” Stafford said.

“Regulation needs to catch up urgently. Governments continue to rely on hopelessly weak codes and processes designed and run by the alcohol industry whose primary interest is to maximise profit, not to protect public health.”

Polling of Australians by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education has previously found 70% of Australians support a ban on alcohol advertising on television before 8.30pm, and 60% support removing alcohol sponsorship in sport.

“Governments that act to protect young people from alcohol marketing can feel confident that they are acting on the basis of mountains of high-quality evidence and with strong public support,” Stafford said.

However, Alcohol Beverages Australia executive director, Fergus Taylor, denied alcohol advertising was associated with underage drinking.

“Anti-alcohol activists have been trying for years to blame alcohol advertising as the cause of underage drinking, but the inconvenient truth for them is this claim is simply not supported by official data,” Taylor said.

“The suggestion current controls in place are ineffective and that further regulation is needed in Australia to curb underage drinking are wrong. Current regulations to protect children are highly effective, and there is compelling data to support this.”