Surprise! Beer commercials make kids want to drink beer
By Owen Morris in Booze
Wednesday, Mar. 11 2009 @ 10:30AM
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| Flickr: Niemster |
It's OK, though, because beer companies insist they're not advertising to minors (but if underage drinking stopped, conservative estimates say sales would plummet by 15 percent).
Now comes research showing that beer commercials are indeed effective on youth.
According to a study by Canadian and Dutch researchers, "Young men who watched the movie American Pie II and 40 Days and 40 Nights with accompanying commercials for alcohol were more apt to grab a beer ... compared to those who watched a movie without the drinking prompts."
The subjects were 18 to 29 years old. It would be hard to argue that 18-year-olds from the United States wouldn't be affected by the same commercials as their Dutch counterparts. The big difference is that American 18-year-olds can't drink legally for another three years.
The research also showed that product placement works, too. The study, which is in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism and can be read in its entirety here, is by no means the final word on the subject. The researchers admit that the exclusion of females, the small study size and the laboratory setting all played a factor. Still, God help us if Utah finds this study.
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