‘No-Buy’ Lists Could Cut Kids’ Exposure to Alcohol Ads.
Young people’s exposure to alcohol advertisements on television could be greatly reduced if alcohol companies improved their use of so-called ‘no-buy’ lists, according to a study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs led by a School of Public Health researcher.
Alcohol manufacturers are self-regulated when it comes to advertising. In 2003, the industry set guidelines that limit advertising to media that have a primarily adult audience—with at least 71.6 percent of the audience being aged 21 or older.
As far back as 1999, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had suggested that the industry use no-buy lists to guide their ad placements. Such lists would put certain television shows or other media off-limits because a large chunk of the audience is likely to be underage.
“It’s been cited by the FTC as a ‘best practice,’” said Craig Ross, lead researcher on the study, who is a research assistant professor of epidemiology and president of Fiorente Media of Boston. Ross also is a consultant to the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, which supported the research.
While some alcohol companies have been using no-buy lists to guide their ad placements, Ross said young adults under the legal drinking age “have been exposed more than 15 billion times to alcohol advertisements that do not meet industry guidelines” over the last decade: “Regardless of how no-buy lists have been implemented in the past, there is clearly room for improvement.”
Ross and colleagues found that between 2005 and 2012, approximately one of every eight alcohol advertisements seen by children under the legal drinking age was non-compliant with alcohol industry guidelines—with cable television accounting for most of that.
Ross’ team then tested the potential effectiveness of a set of new no-buy list criteria it designed. The criteria recommends avoiding ad placements on programs that had fallen short of the industry’s own guidelines in the past year and that aired during times of day when television audiences skew young. The criteria also recommended being more selective about ad placements on low-rated cable shows.
The researchers found that, had such no-buy lists been universally applied, nearly all noncompliant advertising seen by children under the legal drinking age would have been eliminated.
According to Ross, using the no-buy list should not be a burden to the industry.
“The programs that are problematic are actually small in number,” he said. “There would still be a large universe of programs for advertisers to choose from.”
CAMY plans to issue quarterly reports that assess non-complaint alcohol advertising on cable TV based on the new no-buy list criteria. The ultimate goal, Ross said, is to help to limit underage drinking.
“There’s a growing body of research on the effects of alcohol advertising on underage drinking,” Ross said. “Ads are associated with adolescent drinking initiation and excessive drinking.”
Co-authors on the study were David Jernigan of CAMY and Robert Brewer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.