Brands matter: Major findings from the Alcohol Brand Research Among Underage Drinkers (ABRAND) project

Abstract

Background Alcohol research focused on underage drinkers has not comprehensively assessed the landscape of brand-level drinking behaviors among youth. This information is needed to profile youth alcohol use accurately, explore its antecedents, and develop appropriate interventions. Methods We collected national data on the alcohol brand-level consumption of underage drinkers in the United States and then examined the association between those preferences and several factors including youth exposure to brand-specific alcohol advertising, corporate sponsorships, popular music lyrics, and social networking sites, and alcohol pricing. This paper summarizes our findings, plus the results of other published studies on alcohol branding and youth drinking. Results Our findings revealed several interesting facts regarding youth drinking. For example, we found that: 1) youth are not drinking the cheapest alcohol brands; 2) youth brand preferences differ from those of adult drinkers; 3) underage drinkers are not opportunistic in their alcohol consumption, but instead consume a very specific set of brands; 4) the brands that youth are heavily exposed to in magazines and television advertising correspond to the brands they most often report consuming; and 5) youth consume more of the alcohol brands to whose advertising they are most heavily exposed. Conclusion The findings presented here suggests that brand-level alcohol research will provide important insight into youth drinking behaviors, the factors that contribute to youth alcohol consumption, and potential avenues for effective public health surveillance and programming.

Aspirational Brand Choice and Underage Alcohol Use

“…The aspirational brands reported by youth in this study tended to be heavily marketed brands similar to those reported previously as preferred (Tanski et al, 2011) and that youth reported consuming most often (Roberts et al, 2016). It is also notable that even in youth who were nondrinkers at baseline, 21% already had identified an aspirational brand.…”

“…Although binge drinking rates varied by chosen brand reported (28%-71%), binge drinking by drinkers who did not report a preferred brand to drink was less prevalent (11%). One additional U.S. national cross-sectional study assessed brand-specific alcohol consumption and demonstrated that underage youth reported recent consumption primarily of highly marketed brands (Roberts et al, 2016;Siegel et al, 2013), brand-specific alcohol consumption was linked to branded advertising exposure (Ross et al, 2014a(Ross et al, , 2014b(Ross et al, , 2015Siegel et al, 2016aSiegel et al, , 2016b, the brands most often consumed by youth had characteristics distinct from those consumed by adults (Fortunato et al, 2014;Giga et al, 2011;Siegel et al, 2015) and tended to be premium brands (Albers et al, 2014), and similar brands were reported regardless of whether the alcohol was actively or passively obtained (Roberts et al, 2014;Siegel et al, 2015). However, few studies have examined prospective links between brand affiliation and drinking outcomes, an important step in understanding this pathway and establishing a causal link between branded marketing, the development of marketing attitudes and cognitions, and drinking behavior (Casswell & Zhang, 1998).…”

Portrayal of Alcohol Brands Popular Among Underage Youth on YouTube: A Content Analysis

“…Many socio-demographic, personal, and environmental factors are linked to alcohol use in adolescence and young adulthood (Marshall, 2014;McCambridge et al, 2011;Patrick & Schulenberg, 2013). However, exposures to alcohol in media messages are emerging as particularly important factors (Anderson et al, 2008;Hanewinkel et al, 2014;McClure et al, 2016;Roberts et al, 2015). For example, youth are exposed to about 2-4 alcohol advertisements daily via various media outlets, including television and online sources (Collins et al, 2016) and about 35 references to explicit alcohol use daily in popular music, and the vast majority of these messages associate alcohol use with social, sexual, and financial success (Primack et al, 2008(Primack et al, , 2012).…”

Parental Restriction of Movie Viewing Prospectively Predicts Adolescent Alcohol and Marijuana Initiation: Implications for Media Literacy Programs

“…Exposure to media depictions of substance use, specifically alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use, has been linked to initiation and progression of substance use behavior among youth in multiple longitudinal studies (e.g., Mejia et al 2016;Sargent et al 2006;Morgenstern et al 2011a). Entertainment media frequently depicts drinking and drug use or contains embedded marketing for products associated with substance use (Roberts et al 2016;Sargent et al 2006;Sargent et al 2007;Siegel et al 2016). For example, studies on depictions of alcohol use in movies have shown that alcohol use occurs in approximately 83% of the top grossing movies each year (57% of movies rated G/PG; 88% of PG-13 movies; and 90% of R movies; Dal Cin et al 2008).…”