Why Do Alcohol Manufacturers Target Advertising At Youth

Do alcohol manufacturers target advertising at youth? This question has plagued parents, advocacy groups, social researchers and even the government for years. Organizations such as the Center for Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) have steadfastly claimed that they do, and that these ads contribute to the problem of underage drinking. In April 2005, after tabulating the number and type of ads found in magazines and other media, CAMY analyzed the data and appeared to come up with a definitive empirically-grounded answer: As theNew York Times reported,
"56 percent of spending on beer and liquor ads that ran from 2001 through 2003 appeared in publications with a disproportionate readership among those ages 12 to 20."
CAMY's research was and is

But CAMY neglects to mention that alcohol companies do not advertise in magazines whose main audience is youth; for example, Seventeen and YM do not accept alcohol ads. Magazines that target youth are generally alcohol-ad free.
Furthermore, the magazines that CAMY refers to are not primarily written for (or sold to) underage youth. In most cases, more than 80 percent of their readership is of legal drinking age. So is "targeting" a fair word for alcohol advertisements in these magazines? Are the alcohol companies really after underage drinkers?
Penn State's study evaluates whether companies are actually motivated by higher rates of young readers. Nelson identifies several factors that might affect an advertising decision—the size of the readership, the cost of the advertisement, the percentage of youth readers, sales outlets, demographics such as race and income, and magazine topic. The question is which factor actually influences how companies make marketing

The influential factors were the size of the audience (not just how many people bought the magazine, but how many actually read it), and how much an ad costs per 1,000 copies in circulation.
Unlike CAMY's method which defines targeting to be an adolescent readership over 15 percent, Nelson's work suggests economic models for how alcohol companies make their marketing decisions, with a testable hypothesis as to whether marketing decisions are influenced by larger proportions of adolescent readers. In none of the models was adolescent readership an influential factor.
This study suggests that we should move away from accusing the advertising industry of plotting to get kids involved with alcohol before they're 21. However, if we view it not as a matter of evil-alcohol-company intent, but as a moral issue, we can't just dismiss the fact that kids are indeed exposed to alcohol advertising through magazine ads, and more than adults.
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