Despite Concerns, Minors Aren't Bombarded by Alcohol Ads

A global independent study from the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and Nielsen has found people of all ages aren't exposed to a high number of alcohol ads online, despite recent scrutiny around how booze brands target consumers on digital platforms. Using AI technology, the research uncovered a total 0.82% of all ads seen by people young and old online were for alcohol brands. Though the findings might fall flat for some advertisers, the good news for alcohol giants and regulators alike is that minors were found to have particularly low exposure to these campaigns. In fact, the WFA noted that someone under the age of 18 would have to visit 420 different websites before they were presented with an ad for beer or liquor. This means, on average, children are served only one alcohol ad for every 18 hours and 41 minutes they spend online. To conduct the study, the WFA used monitoring technology in the form of child "avatars’"—online profiles which simulate children’s browsing activity—to identify ads kids see online. This imitation software tracked advertising activity across 12 markets including Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland, South Africa and Spain. The avatars hit up 1,600 websites a day, including YouTube channels popular with teens, to achieve a simulation of the average browsing habits in each country. Ad pervasiveness varied across markets, with Brazil and Nigeria emerging as outliers. In the former, 2.41% of all ads contained alcohol products; for the latter, it was 1.97%, even though they had similar overall ad yields to Japan and Mexico. Booze brands face scrutiny over digital strategies Alcohol ad spend is set to rise to $7.7 billion by 2023 according to media agency Zenith. In the past, alcohol brands have historically been slow to commit to digital channels, devoting less than half as much of their budgets to platforms like Facebook and YouTube than the average brand in 2020. However, that's changing rapidly. Covid-19 has given rise to increased ecommerce and direct-to-consumer activity in the space, correlating with an uptick in digital and social media spend. Zenith has predicted that by 2023, digital advertising will account for 30% of alcohol CMOs' budgets. This increase has led to deeper scrutiny from global regulators about how alcohol brands use digital to promote their products. The World Health Organization (WHO) conducted its own report in 2021, which found that fewer than half of its 29 member states in the region had implemented a ban on alcohol marketing online. Just as with tobacco, WHO argued a global and comprehensive approach is required to restrict digital marketing of alcohol. “Current policies across the WHO European Region are insufficient to protect people from new formats of alcohol marketing. Age verification schemes, where they exist, are usually inadequate to protect minors from exposure to alcohol marketing. The fact that the vast majority of alcohol advertising online is 'dark,' in the sense that it is only visible to the consumer to whom it is marketed, is challenging for policy makers, thus requiring new mechanisms and a new approach,” said Dr. Carina Ferreira-Borges, acting director for noncommunicable diseases and programme manager for alcohol and illicit drugs at WHO Europe. A recent WHO-UNICEF-Lancet report went so far as to even place marketing on par with climate change as a threat to minors. In 2020, a separate expose criticized alcohol brands’ use of social media, suggesting that minors are exposed to alcohol marketing due to poor age controls online. However, the WFA's chief executive Stephan Loerke said its research shows the full story isn't being told: “There is a narrative that suggests that minors are being bombarded by alcohol ads. This study demonstrates this simply isn’t the case and offers useful perspective in terms of the size of the perceived problem. That said, WFA continues to work with its partners and members so that brand safety controls strive to eliminate minors’ exposure to alcohol brand messages online."

Alcohol Industry News

Despite Regulator Concerns, Minors Aren't Bombarded by Alcohol Ads

The WFA says its research debunks speculation that young people are overexposed to booze ads online

Rebecca Stewart

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Rebecca Stewart