Alcohol advertising in disguise: Exposure to zero-alcohol products prompts adolescents to think of alcohol—Reaction time experimental study
Research report
Highlights
- Zero-alcohol products prompt adolescents to think of alcohol, regardless of branding.
- Adolescents respond faster to brands from alcoholic drinks (“brand extensions”) than to “new-to-world” drinks.
- Adolescents categorise zero-alcohol drinks as alcoholic beverages, not soft drinks.
- Regulations limiting adolescents’ alcohol exposure should include zero-alcohol products.
There is now a strong argument for some sensible restrictions to be made on where zero-alcohol products can be sold and advertised.”
Dr Ashlea Bartram, Flinders Health and Medical Institute (FHMRI)
Summary
Teenagers consider zero-alcohol beverages to be a type of alcoholic product, leading Flinders University researchers to voice grave concerns about the impact of their exposure to zero-alcohol branding and advertising.
Our new study shows that teenagers classify zero-alcohol drinks as a type of alcoholic beverage, rather than as a soft drink,” says lead author Dr Ashlea Bartram from the Flinders Health and Medical Institute (FHMRI), as per Flinders University reporting.
Dr Ashlea Bartram, Flinders Health and Medical Institute (FHMRI)
It means that exposure to zero-alcohol products in advertising or retail spaces such as the local supermarket, may have the same type of negative effects that come from exposure to alcoholic beverages.
This is a major concern because there is a well-established association between frequency of alcohol advertising exposure and alcohol consumption among adolescents,” says Dr Bartram, as per Flinders University reporting.
In other words, the more alcohol advertising a young person is exposed to, the more alcohol they consume.”
Dr Ashlea Bartram, Flinders Health and Medical Institute (FHMRI)
Zero-alcohol products (beverages with <0.5% alcohol) resemble alcohol in appearance and taste, and are most often advertised under established alcohol brands (known as ‘brand extensions’) or as entirely new products (‘new to world’).
Dr Bartram warns there are few current regulations of zero-alcohol products, which are freely available for sale to all age groups, including in places where alcohol is not available, such as supermarkets – and in these places they are often located alongside soft drinks.
Young people associate zero-alcohol drinks with alcohol.”
Dr Ashlea Bartram, Flinders Health and Medical Institute (FHMRI)
The study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy involved more than 300 teenagers aged 15-to-17 years participating in a reaction-time experiment, viewing 20 randomly ordered images of alcoholic drinks, zero-alcohol drinks and soft drinks.
They were asked to quickly indicate whether the images made them think of alcohol. Their response time and agreement levels were recorded and analysed.
The study was designed to further understand their perceptions of zero-alcohol products and the impacts these perceptions may have on their future alcohol consumption.
Most images of alcoholic drinks (94.4%), the ‘brand extension’ zero-alcohol drinks (90.7%), and ‘new-to-world’ zero-alcohol (85.6%) products prompted them to think of alcohol, compared to just 5.2% of images of soft drinks,” says Dr Bartram, as per Flinders University reporting.
They were slightly quicker to categorise ‘brand extension’ (such as Heineken or Gordon’s) zero-alcohol drinks as alcohol rather than ‘new-to-world’ drinks – but overall it was clear that the vast majority of these products were prompting teens to think of alcohol.
Put simply, in the majority of cases, young people associate zero-alcohol drinks with alcohol, so there is now a strong argument for some sensible restrictions to be made on where these drinks can be sold and advertised.”
Dr Ashlea Bartram, Flinders Health and Medical Institute (FHMRI)
Dr Bartram says that it is well documented that alcohol consumption is particularly harmful for young people’s developing brains, bodies and mental health due to its neurodevelopmental impacts, and can increase a young person’s risk of illness, accident, and injury.
Young people who start drinking alcohol at an early age are also more likely to drink alcohol in harmful ways, or become dependent on alcohol in later life,” Dr Bartram says.
Dr Ashlea Bartram, Flinders Health and Medical Institute (FHMRI)
The Australian Alcohol Guidelines recommend that children and people under 18 years old should not drink alcohol to reduce their risk of injury and health risks.
Australia’s National Preventive Health Strategy 2021–2030 has also set an ambitious goal to limit alcohol consumption among youths aged 14 to 17 years old to less than 10% by 2030.
The rise of zero-alcohol drinks presents a unique regulatory challenge. Many of these beverages feature branding and designs that closely mirror conventional alcoholic drinks, contributing to the normalisation of alcohol consumption for younger Australians,” says Dr Bartram, as per Flinders University reporting.
As the boundaries between alcohol and its alternatives blur, the safeguarding of young people against the dangers of alcohol consumption must remain a central focus in public health initiatives.
We’re now calling on governments to reconsider the regulations on how zero-alcohol drinks are marketed and sold.”
Dr Ashlea Bartram, Flinders Health and Medical Institute (FHMRI)
Meaning
The study found that nearly all responses indicated zero-alcohol products prompted participants to think of alcohol, compared to very few responses to images of prototypical soft drinks.
These findings suggest that adolescents categorise zero-alcohol products within the broader category of “alcoholic drinks,” in contrast to “soft drinks.”
These findings support concerns raised by policymakers, researchers, parents, and adolescents that the strong visual resemblance between zero-alcohol products and alcoholic drinks means that exposure to zero-alcohol products through their presence in retail environments and advertisements may function similarly to exposure to alcohol products and advertising – a key influence on adolescent alcohol consumption.
These findings are consistent with research showing that other alcohol-branded products, such as bottled water, clothing, and merchandise prompt young people to think of alcohol. It extends previous work by showing that, with zero-alcohol products, this effect can occur not just for products that share an alcohol brand, but also those employing new to the world brands. The findings thus contribute to calls for research into how exposure to zero-alcohol products and advertising may function as surrogate marketing for full-strength alcohol products.
Implications for policy
These findings have important implications for policymakers, as they indicate a need to regulate the advertising of zero-alcohol products in a similar manner to alcoholic drinks to limit children’s exposure to these drinks and their advertising.
Regulating the drink category as a whole, rather than just drinks featuring alcohol brand extensions (as implemented in Norway), is advisable, since both brand extension and NTW drinks were categorised by adolescents as alcohol. Mandatory, independent regulations encompassing zero-alcohol products are recommended, potentially drawing on models for regulating “lookalike” tobacco products.
Future research directions
Although this study was specific to adolescents, it is plausible that the effect also extends to adults, with research showing that parents may treat zero-alcohol products in a similar manner to alcoholic drinks when considering whether to provide them to their children. Future research should seek to demonstrate the robustness of the findings by replicating the experiment with different cohorts of adolescents, as well as exploring whether the effects found in this study hold across different demographic groups such as adult alcohol consumers, people who abstain from alcohol consumption, and people with alcohol dependence.
In addition, there would be value in exploring which features of drinks other than alcohol content and brand are most influential in prompting people to categorise a drink as an “alcoholic drink” (e.g. product descriptor, container shape). Such research might be useful in guiding regulatory definitions of “alcohol-like” products such as zero-alcohol drinks, helping to reduce inconsistencies in definitions between policy instruments and jurisdictions.
Conclusion
Findings from this study suggest that – as least for adolescents – zero-alcohol products are best understood as members of the category of “alcoholic drinks,” not “soft drinks.”
Exposure to zero-alcohol products within retail settings and through advertisements is thus likely to prompt adolescents to think of alcohol in a similar manner to when they are exposed to alcoholic drinks, suggesting that regulatory approaches that seek to limit adolescents’ exposure to alcohol should also extend to zero-alcohol products.
Abstract
Background
Zero-alcohol products (beverages with <0.5 % alcohol by volume) appear and taste like alcoholic beverages; they may feature brands from alcoholic drinks (“brand extensions”) or “new-to-world” brands. These zero-alcohol products are not consistently included within many regulations aimed at reducing adolescents’ exposure to alcohol products and advertising.
This online study examined whether adolescents implicitly categorise images of zero-alcohol drinks as alcoholic beverages.
Methods
331 Australian adolescents aged 15–17 years participated in an online within-subjects reaction time experiment. Participants viewed 20 randomly-ordered images of alcohol, zero-alcohol, and soft drink products and were asked to indicate as quickly as possible whether these images made them think of alcohol, with both response time and agreement recorded.
Generalised linear mixed effects models were used to examine differences in response time and agreement by drink type, adjusting for clustering of responses within participants, recent consumption, survey device (mobile/computer), and parental presence.
Results
Most images of alcoholic (94.4 %), brand extension zero-alcohol (90.7 %), and “new-to-world” zero-alcohol (85.6 %) drinks prompted participants to think of alcohol, compared to 5.2 % of soft drinks.
In the mixed effects model, compared to alcoholic drinks, participants on average responded 72 ms slower to brand extension zero-alcohol drinks and 215 ms slower to “new-to-world” brand zero-alcohol drinks.
Conclusions
The combination of high levels of agreement and slower reaction times suggest that adolescents categorise zero-alcohol drinks as non-typical alcoholic drinks, rather than soft drinks.
Thus, exposure to zero-alcohol drinks had similar effects to exposure to alcoholic drinks.
Urgent regulatory action is required to ensure that restrictions on alcohol advertising and availability to minors extend to zero-alcohol drinks.