I know what you are all already thinking, “What a dumb question to ask”. But is it really dumb? I understand the purpose of advertising is to market your product and have it reach certain populations that word-of-mouth can simply not. Advertising is key to a companies success and vital to its profit. The purpose of advertising is to influence certain target markets to try a companies product or visit a certain destination. But just because I pass a billboard on the highway advertising Adidas footwear doesn’t mean I immediately want my next pair of sneakers to be Adidas brand. I might want a pair of Nike’s, Jordan’s, or Timberland’s. I mean, hell, I might want a pair of sketchers that light up on the bottom every time I take a step. The point is, there are so many factors that influence the choices we make. But when it comes to a product such as alcohol, advertising might play a crucial role in which beer teenagers choose to consume.

Consuming alcohol as an adolescent can be very dangerous. But to some, it can be seen as cool and rebellious. A teenagers alcoholic beverage choice can easily be correlated to what his or her’s parents have stashed away in the liquor cabinet at home. But that choice can also be correlated to what a teenager sees and hears. New research has discovered that the exposure to brand-specific alcohol advertising can influence the brand of alcohol an underage youth consumes. “Researchers found youth between the ages of 13 to 20 were more than five times more likely to consume brands that advertise on national television, and 36 percent more likely to consume brands that advertise in national magazines — compared to brands that don’t advertise in these media.” In order to identify which alcohol brands were consumed researchers asked 1,031 underage drinkers which of the 898 brands they had consumed in the past thirty days using an online national survey conducted between December 2011 and May 2012. David Jernigan, head researcher of the study, states that “These findings indicate that youth are in fact consuming the same alcohol brands that they are most heavily exposed to via advertising.”

Although this study offers interesting findings, I have developed several thoughts that can question its findings. Did these researchers account for potential confounding factors that could influence the type of beer consumed by teenagers such as price, availability, and taste? For example, when I was a teenager in high school my friends and I consumed alcohol based on availability. Advertisements we would see in magazines or on television played no part in which brand we consumed. We were young and thoughtless, If we could obtain alcohol we would drink it, period. Now that I am a college student, the alcohol I consume is correlated to the amount of money I have in my wallet. A Corona commercial can come on T.V. and I might think yea that sounds great, but a 15 dollar case of natural ice sounds even better when I take into account that it is less than half the price of Corona. Another example pertain to my dad. He chooses his alcohol brand based off of taste. If it tastes good he’ll consume it. His choice isn’t based off of availability, price, or what he sees, rather it’s based off of taste.

The alcohol an individual chooses to consume can correlate to many factors, and I believe the main variable is age. But when it comes to teen consumption of alcoholic beverages, new research has proven that alcohol ads play a major role in which brand a teenager chooses to consume.

SITES:

http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/10/22/alcohol-ads-influence-teen-choices/93830.html

http://alcoholism.about.com/od/prevention/a/Teen-Drinking-Influenced-By-Alcohol-Advertising.htm

http://www.cspinet.org/booze/beeradvertisements.background.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK37586/