Leighton Dry
English 112
Mrs. Douglas
11 March 2015
Alcohol Advertising The advertisement of alcohol has always been a very controversial subject. Many say it can lead to underage drinking however, it has never been proven that alcohol advertising causes higher consumption. In every ad there is a target market for which they plan to pitch there advertisement to and try to relate to them better. For alcohol it would be adults over the age of twenty-one but that is the controversy, some say when minors see these ads it can influence them. Some advertisements target women while others target men such as beers and whiskies. Alcohol advertisements have been criticized for targeting a younger audience and some say they are promoting underage drinking. No matter how advertising is used the goal is to sell the product and companies will usually do whatever it takes to do that. Alcohol advertisements are everywhere around us and sometimes they don’t give the warnings or precautions they should. There are many different ways to attract someone’s attention in advertising whether it is through trying to relate to them in some way, or showing some pleasures that people enjoy. Sometimes they use sex to appeal to people. Cabo Wabo used a girl holding a lime between her breasts and it said “Take your best shot.” Now this advertisements would be targeted more towards males but it grabs their attention and could make them want to buy this tequila because of the girl. This tactic is used in all advertisements. In advertising lots of times a company will choose a certain character to represent their brand. They will choose a well-known person to the public and usually a famous man or women. In a Champale advertisement they use a popular jazz player and it says, “The first sound and you know it’s Dizzy… the first sip and you know it’s Champale.” They show him playing the instrument in the ad and my showing him can influence people to buy their malt liquor. Every year Budweiser has an ad in the super bowl and there famous thing is the Clydesdale horses. This past year they put a puppy in the commercial with them and showed the connection between the horses and the puppy. Anytime there is a puppy in an advertisement there is always an emotional connection because most people love little dogs. Budweiser is using this emotional connection to hopefully sell more of their product because they know people will like the commercial. When there is a big sporting event they use that as their advantage because they know a lot of people will be drinking alcohol. Alcohol advertisements are everywhere; in the grocery store, in magazines, on television, and just about anywhere for anybody to see. Young adults will see them and this is what parents think can lead to underage drinking. In these advertisements they make the people in them look like they are having fun, looking good, being successful which makes people want to use the product so they can be like them( FTC). This is why some people feel that alcohol advertisements should be banned because it is easier to influence a kid into believing something such as that rather than an adult. “Under pressure from the Federal Trade Commission to reduce youth exposure to alcohol marketing, in 2003 trade associations representing beer and distilled spirits companies joined wine marketers in committing to advertise only when the underage audience composition is less than 30 percent. This threshold has been ineffective in reducing youth exposure on television, either in absolute or in relative terms” (Hopkins). In the last twelve years they have been working to decrease the amount of underage exposure to alcohol advertisements on television. It states that it has been ineffective so the efforts to stop it cannot be done and even if they were there is still lots of advertisements everywhere not just on television. Advertising in general can be very misleading but more so when they are dealing with alcohol.