Frogs Sell Beer: The Effects of Beer Advertisements on Adolescent Drinking Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behavior.

Abstract

The present research reveals how beer advertising affects adolescents’ knowledge of beer brands, drinking attitudes, and drinking behaviors. In addition to traditional psychological approaches for measuring media effects on alcohol-related behaviors and attitudes, market research advertising tracking methods were included to permit a clearer and more complete picture of the effects of beer advertising on young people. Seventh through twelfth grade students (N = 1,588) were surveyed. Students were recruited from mandatory health classes in Midwestern suburban schools, and an Eastern urban school Advertisers often describe advertising as having four goals: (1) Building brand awareness/recognition, (2) building brand preference, (3) obtaining product purchase/use, and (4) building brand loyalty. Correlation analyses were conducted to determine whether the amount of money spent by beer companies to advertise selected beer brands predicts students’ responses regarding brand awareness, preference, use, and loyalty. Results show that the amount of money spent advertising beer brands in 1998 and 1999 strongly predicts adolescents’ brand awareness, preference, use, and loyalty behaviors in 1999-2000. For example, the beer companies that spent the most money on advertising had the highest brand awareness, highest brand preference, highest brand use, and highest brand loyalty among adolescents. Correlations for each of these range from 0.63 to 0.79, with the highest correlation between beer advertising budgets and adolescent drinking. Regression analyses were conducted to determine the predictors of students’ intention to drink beer after they turn 21. Results show that many types of variables contribute to intention to drink, including peer variables, parent variables, media-related variables, and attitudinal variables. While each of these types of variables is an important predictor of intention to drink, media-related variables account for the greatest amount of variance in intention to drink (25%). Regression analyses were also conducted to determine the predictors of students’ actual drinking behaviors. While many types of variables contribute to whether students currently drink alcohol as well as their frequency of drinking alcohol, media-related variables (21%) and peer variables (30%) account for the greatest amount of variance predicting actual adolescent drinking behavior. The pattern of results in this study shows that media and advertisements are a significant predictor, and perhaps the most significant predictor, of adolescents’ (1) knowledge about beer brands, (2) preference for beer brands, (3) current drinking behaviors, (4) beer brand loyalty, and (5) intentions to drink.