The number one drug problem in the United States is alcohol. The alcohol industry spends nearly $2 billion each year on advertising that specifically targets the youth of our country. These advertisements portray alcohol as fun, relaxing, and harmless. They also make the connection that alcohol is festive, related to parties, and necessary for celebrations. However, alcohol advertising is also closely linked with the media, so it is hyped up and the problems with it are dismissed. What the advertisements don’t show is that alcohol is related to the most dangerous problems in our society; murder, suicide, traffic accidents, and abuse.
Ten percent of all deaths in the United States are alcohol related. Fifty percent of all driving fatalities are related to alcohol, fifty percent of homicides are related to alcohol, and a quarter of all suicides are related to alcohol. These numbers are astonishing, and easily prevented. Putting alcohol related driving fatalities into perspective, in the United States, every thirty minutes someone is killed in an alcohol related traffic incident.
These scary facts are disregarded by alcohol companies because of the amount of money they gain back from running their advertising campaigns. The campaigns give companies brand recognition. They specific target people who are underage, so that when they are of age to drink, they have that company’s product name imbedded in the young adult’s brain. Alcohol corporations use animal mascots in their advertising campaigns.
Anheuser-Bush is a company that is famous for using animals in their marketing campaigns. One advertisement on television shows frogs burping the name, “Budweiser.” This juvenile, comedic act may correlate to the company selling almost one-fourth of all consumed alcohol in the United States. It also spends over a quarter of a billion dollars a year on advertising and promotion. An Anheuser-Busch marketing executive said, “Fifty years ago, Clydesdales were just horses. Now it is impossible for people to see them and not think of Budweiser.” This is exactly what alcohol companies aim to do.
Anheuser-Busch, like many alcohol companies have also used lizards, penguins, and dogs to represent their companies. This is specifically appealing to children, because there is a certain attraction children have to animals. Children form bonds and relationships with creatures and become attached to cartoon characters, stuffed animals, and real animals too, because it sticks with their mindset.
In a 1994 Coors advertising campaign the company hired people to dress up and as Coors beer cans and animals wearing t-shirts with the company’s logo in front of liquor stores. This definitely would catch the attention of young people, and cause them to associate the logo on the mascot’s shirt with a fuzzy animal, and cause brand recognition at a young age.
Young isn’t a relative term in this face, a 1999 study found that almost eight percent of nine-year-olds were already drinking beer. That’s a terrifying thought, second graders intentionally drinking beer. Also, a survey of eight to twelve-year-olds in Washington, D.C., found that students could name more brands of beer than they could U.S. presidents. With that survey alone, it can’t be argued that advertising doesn’t have an effect on young minds; however, evidence keeps growing connecting underage drinking with children’s exposure to alcohol advertising.
Advertisers want to hook buyers from a young age, but they also try to target binge drinkers because ten percent of all drinkers consume over 60 percent of all alcohol sold. Coincidently enough, seven million people ages 12 to 20 are binge drinkers. That means one in five people underage are binge drinkers. Each year students spend $5.5 billion on alcohol, which is more than they spend on soda, juice, coffee, tea, milk, and text combined.
Companies prey on children by using cute animals to draw them in. Then, when children begin to drink (could be as early as second grade) they know what brand to get because they remember the logo from the animal advertisement. 500,000 young people, ages 9-12 (third graders to sixth graders) are dependent on alcohol in the United States. This same demographic sees more than 1,000 commercials for beer and wine coolers every year. They also watch movies where 92 percent have alcohol in them, including 52 percent of G-rated films. So, by this time the children, along with young adults are binge drinkers who consume most of the alcohol sold in the United States.
Kilbourne, Jean. Deadly Persuasion Why Women And Girls Must Fight The Addictive Power Of Advertising. New York: Free, 1999. Print.
By Heather Barrett
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