Report on the volume of youth exposure to alcohol advertising and sponsorship.

Aims: There is growing evidence from longitudinal studies that the volume of alcohol advertising to which young people are exposed affects their alcohol drinking behaviour. This paper aims to give insight in the volume of adolescents’ exposure to alcohol advertising in several European countries. A focus is laid on alcohol advertising on television, sport sponsorship and event sponsoring, promotional items, point of sale promotions and digital marketing. Methods: The paper describes analysis of cross-sectional data collected within the Amphora project. The sample (N=9380) contains secondary school students from Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland. Results: Already in the limited number of marketing channels examined, young people seem to be reached frequently by large numbers of alcohol marketing practices. In the paper frequency of (perceived)exposure is reported. Conclusions: Alcohol advertisers use marketing channels that are attractive and available to young people. Advertising in such channels guarantees exposure to large volume of European minors

Commercial promotion of drinking in Europe. Key findings of independent monitoring of alcohol marketing in five European countries.

The following report provides a comprehensive overview of the results of the monitoring work conducted by the NGOs in five European countries; Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Italy and The Netherlands. The AMMIE project (Alcohol Marketing Monitoring in Europe) consists of NGOs from five EU countries (Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands) that monitored alcohol advertising practices and marketing activities in 2010. The project started in 2009 and is partly funded by the European Commission. Although alcohol marketing is an important topic within the EU Alcohol Strategy, alcohol marketing had not yet been monitored systematically and independently from commercial interests in many of the European Member States. The goal of the AMMIE project is to provide insight into the effectiveness of existing alcohol marketing regulations (both legislative and self-regulation) in select European countries (Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands). The results of the AMMIE project thus offer insight into the overall presence of alcohol marketing in the five selected countries and describe the content and the amount of alcohol advertising. Special attention is given to the opinion of young people about the attractiveness of alcohol advertising practices and to the amount of exposure to alcohol advertising of young people

Report on the impact of European alcohol marketing exposure on youth alcohol expectancies and youth drinking.

This deliverable reports on two possible outcomes of alcohol marketing exposure among youth: its impact on expectancies on alcohol as well as the drinking behavior. By including both outcomes in one analysis it was not only studied whether alcohol marketing exposure affects youth drinking behavior, but also whether the possible effect is mediated by expectancies on drinking alcohol. In this way, the authors attempt to provide a deeper understanding into the mechanisms behind the hypothesised impact of alcohol marketing exposure. In order to study the impact of alcohol marketing exposure, two studies have been conducted: one study on online alcohol marketing (Study A) and a second study on alcohol-branded sport sponsorship (Study B). Focus groups held within the AMPHORA study revealed the possible importance of digital media and sport sponsorship according to European youth. Although alcohol marketing expenditures of these types of alcohol marketing are growing steadily, there is still a gap within the scientific literature on the impact of these types of alcohol marketing. This report concludes with take home messages which give a summary of the most important findings

Impact of Alcohol Advertising and Media Exposure on Adolescent Alcohol Use: A systematic review of longitudinal studies

Aims: To assess the impact of alcohol advertising and media exposure on future adolescent alcohol use. Methods: We searched MEDLINE, the Cochrane Library, Sociological Abstracts, and PsycLIT, from 1990 to September 2008, supplemented with searches of Google scholar, hand searches of key journals and reference lists of identified papers and key publications for more recent publications.We selected longitudinal studies that assessed individuals’ exposure to commercial communications and media and alcohol drinking behaviour at baseline, and assessed alcohol drinking behaviour at follow-up. Participants were adolescents aged 18 years or younger or below the legal drinking age of the country of origin of the study, whichever was the higher. Results: Thirteen longitudinal studies that followed up a total of over 38,000 young people met inclusion criteria. The studies measured exposure to advertising and promotion in a variety of ways, including estimates of the volume of media and advertising exposure, ownership of branded merchandise, recall and receptivity, and one study on expenditure on advertisements. Follow-up ranged from 8 to 96 months. One study reported outcomes at multiple time-points, 3, 5, and 8 years. Seven studies provided data on initiation of alcohol use amongst non-drinkers, three studies on maintenance and frequency of drinking amongst baseline drinkers, and seven studies on alcohol use of the total sample of non-drinkers and drinkers at baseline. Twelve of the thirteen studies concluded an impact of exposure on subsequent alcohol use, including initiation of drinking and heavier drinking amongst existing drinkers, with a dose response relationship in all studies that reported such exposure and analysis. There was variation in the strength of association, and the degree to which potential confounders were controlled for. The thirteenth study, which tested the impact of outdoor advertising placed near schools failed to detect an impact on alcohol use, but found an impact on intentions to use. Conclusions: Longitudinal studies consistently suggest that exposure to media and commercial communications on alcohol is associated with the likelihood that adolescents will start to drink alcohol, and with increased drinking amongst baseline drinkers. Based on the strength of this association, the consistency of findings across numerous observational studies, temporality of exposure and drinking behaviours observed, dose-response relationships, as well as the theoretical plausibility regarding the impact of media exposure and commercial communications, we conclude that alcohol advertising and promotion increases the likelihood that adolescents will start to use alcohol, and to drink more if they are already using alcohol

Exposure to online alcohol marketing and adolescents' drinking: A cross-sectional study in four European countries

Aims: The Internet is the leading medium among European adolescents in contemporary times even more time is spent on the Internet than watching television. This study investigates associations between online alcohol marketing exposure and onset of drinking and binge drinking among adolescents in four European countries.Method: A total of 9038 students with a mean age of 14.05 (SD 0.82) participated in a school-based survey in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. Logistic regression analyses of cross-sectional cross-country survey data were undertaken. Exposure to online alcohol marketing, televised alcohol advertising and ownership of alcohol-branded items was estimated to be controlled for relevant confounders. Onset of drinking and binge drinking in the past 30 days were included in the study as outcome variables.Results: Adjusted for relevant confounders, higher exposure to (online) alcohol marketing exposure was found to be related to the odds of starting to drink (p < 0.001) and the odds of binge drinking in the past 30 days (p < 0.001). This effect was found to be consistent in all four countries. Active engagement with online alcohol marketing was found to interact more strongly with drinking outcomes than passive exposure to online alcohol marketing.Conclusions: Youngsters in the four European countries report frequent exposure to online alcohol marketing. The association between this exposure and adolescents' drinking was robust and seems consistent across national contexts

European longitudinal study on the relationship between adolescents’ alcohol marketing exposure and alcohol use.

This is the first study to examine the effect of alcohol marketing exposure on adolescents’ drinking in a cross-national context. The aim was to examine reciprocal processes between exposure to a wide range of alcohol marketing types and adolescent drinking, controlled for non-alcohol branded media exposure. School-based sample in 181 state-funded schools in Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland. A total of 9075 eligible respondents participated in the survey (mean age 14 years, 49.5% male. Adolescents reported their frequency of past-month drinking and binge drinking. Alcohol marketing exposure was measured by a latent variable with 13 items measuring exposure to online alcohol marketing, televised alcohol advertising, alcohol sport sponsorship, music event/festival sponsorship, ownership alcohol-branded promotional items, reception of free samples and exposure to price offers. Confounders were age, gender, education, country, internet use, exposure to non-alcohol sponsored football championships and television programmes without alcohol commercials. Conclusions: There appears to be a one-way effect of alcohol marketing exposure on adolescents’ alcohol use over time, which cannot be explained by either previous drinking or exposure to non-alcohol-branded marketing