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Alcohol Ads Still Reaching Youths on the Radio

Almost one out of 11 alcohol radio ads in 75 markets across the nation in 2009 failed to comply with the industry’s voluntary standard for the placement of advertising, according to the latest analysis conducted by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In 2003, trade groups for beer and distilled spirits committed to placing alcohol ads in media venues only when underage youths comprise less than or equal to 30% of the audience, since 30% of the audience is aged 20 or younger.

The CAMY analysis found that 9% of the ads in 75 markets that account for almost 50% of radio listeners aged 12 and older failed to meet the industry standards. Three brands alone—Miller Lite, Bud Light, and Coors Light—placed more than one-half of these violating ads.

The National Research Council, the Institute of Medicine and 24 state attorneys general have called on the alcohol industry to beef up its standard and meet a “proportional” 15$ placement standard, given the fact that the group most at risk for underage drinking—12- to 20-year-olds—is approximately 15% of the U.S. population.

“A nine percent failure rate for an already weak standard means that a significant number of young people are being overexposed to alcohol advertising on the radio,” says David Jernigan, PhD, CAMY director. “Reducing the voluntary standard to 15% would go a long way to keeping our young people safe and away from the undue influence of alcohol marketing.”

The influence of radio as a local media venue continues even in this dynamic digital age, as 93% of Americans aged 12 and older reported that they owned and/or used an AM-FM radio in 2011.

For this report, CAMY analyzed alcohol advertisements placed on the radio in the 75 local markets in the United States in 2009 for which full-year data from a consistent survey methodology were available. These markets represent 46.5% of the U.S. population aged 12 and older. Other key findings include:

In 2009, youths aged 12 to 20 were more likely per capita than adults to hear 32% of alcohol advertising placements.

Distilled spirits were the most common type of alcohol advertisement to overexpose youth audiences in Portable People Meter (PPM) markets. The PPM is a new method of measuring listening, in which survey participants agree to wear a small device that receives a special signal from each radio station. PPMs allow for more precise measurement of actual listening because they do not depend on survey participants’ active recall and do not require them to record their listening behavior in a paper diary

In diary markets, where the PPM is not yet in use and where people kept a paper diary of radio listening in 15-minute increments throughout the day, beer and alcopops advertising was most likely to overexpose youth.

Fifteen brands garnered 25% or more of their exposure to youths in at least 10% of markets from advertising not in compliance with the industry’s 30% standard.

In the majority of the 11 markets where Arbitron’s Portable People Meters were deployed for all of 2009, girls aged 12 to 20 were more likely than boys of the same age to be exposed to advertising for alcopops, distilled spirits, and wine.

— Source: Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth