Removing Positive Social Features From Alcohol Advertisements and Including Health Warnings May Reduce Consumers’ Drinking

Adults react differently to alcohol advertisements depending on how explicit or implicit the messaging is about the social pleasure of drinking and the possible health effects, a new study shows. Exposure to alcohol marketing is consistently linked to alcohol use. Research also suggests that alcohol advertising influences attitudes around alcohol, such as social norms or reasons for drinking. Policymakers’ options for lowering alcohol consumption and its harms include content controls on advertising. Restricting sales messages to facts about the product is known to reduce how persuasive it is among consumers. Mandating health warnings also increases consumers’ perceptions of risk and reduces the perceived benefits of drinking. No studies, however, have previously examined the effects of such content controls on consumers in the UK. In addition, most research has focused on young adults, yet adults in midlife and beyond may also be vulnerable to the effects of marketing. For the study i

New Algorithm Can Identify Images of Alcohol in Electronic Media; Potential Tool to Limit Online Exposure to Alcohol Marketing

A new algorithm has been found to identify images of alcohol in electronic media with a high degree of accuracy. Possible applications for this algorithm include public health research to quantify exposure to images of alcohol and mobile or web applications to allow individuals to filter unwanted exposure to online alcohol advertising or alcohol-related content. The development and testing of the algorithm are described in a paper published in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. The algorithm has been made publicly available at no charge.