Alcohol related harm is one of the major public health and societal concerns in the UK. Per capita alcohol consumption has risen considerably over the last twenty years and binge drinking has increased. Alcohol related harms including crime and social disorder, lost productivity, family breakdown and health harms such as rising incidence of liver disease and increases in alcohol related hospital admissions, are considerable. Particular concern has focused upon alcohol and young people, with levels of youth binge drinking in the UK among the highest in Europe and alcohol related hospital admissions of young people increasing. Furthermore, youth drinking behaviours are strong predictors of alcohol dependence in later life and contribute to long term health harms. As a result there has been an increased focus on factors that may potentially influence youth drinking behaviours including alcohol marketing. The evidence base on the impact of alcohol marketing on youth drinking has developed since the topic was first examined in the early 1980s. Recent systematic reviews have suggested a causal link between alcohol marketing and youth drinking behaviour. However gaps in the evidence base remain. The research project presented in this PhD contains six publications which aim to address these gaps, being the first longitudinal consumer study on the impact of alcohol marketing on youth drinking in the UK. The study used a critical social marketing framework to assess the cumulative impact of alcohol marketing on youth drinking, with findings intended to help upstream social marketing efforts, inform policy and regulation and targeted behaviour change interventions. The project examined the impact of alcohol marketing across a comprehensive range of communications channels including less well researched areas such as new media and sponsorship. The project involved three discrete stages of research. First, a brand website and press audit of contemporary alcohol marketing communications in the UK was conducted, supplemented by interviews with key informants from the marketing profession and regulatory bodies. Second, qualitative focus group research was conducted with young people to explore the role and meaning of alcohol in their lives and their attitudes towards alcohol marketing. Third, a two wave cohort study design featuring a questionnaire survey was conducted to assess the impact of alcohol marketing on youth drinking. The survey consisted of a two part interviewer administered and self completion questionnaire in home with 920 second year school pupils at baseline, and follow up of a cohort of 552 in fourth year. The audit revealed that alcohol marketing is ubiquitous in the UK with most brands having a dedicated website featuring sophisticated content that appeals to youth including music, sport and video games. The press audit found that alcopop brands concentrated advertising in youth magazines, and that supermarket advertising of alcohol was considerable in the printed press. Focus group research revealed a sophisticated level of awareness of and involvement in alcohol marketing among respondents across several channels. Marketing activities often featuring content with youth appeal seemed to influence young people’s well developed brand attitudes. Cross sectional regression analysis found significant associations between awareness of, and involvement with alcohol marketing and drinking status and future drinking intentions. Bivariate and multi-variate longitudinal analysis indicated that alcohol marketing was associated with youth drinking behaviour, including initiation of drinking, and increased frequency of drinking between wave one and wave two. The implications of these findings for theory, practice and public policy are discussed.

This study draws on cultivation analysis (Gerbner, 1969) to explore the interrelating factors concerning the role of media in young people’s consumption of alcohol at a south-eastern Nigerian university. Nigeria has the second highest alcohol consumption in Africa. Traditionally, drinking spaces were dominated by adult males for socio-cultural reasons but in contemporary Nigeria there is increasing concern that younger men and women are now also drinking harmfully. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 22 male and 9 female undergraduate students (aged 19-23 years) to explore the ways in which media consumption shapes their drinking behaviour. Whilst young people’s consumption of both local and foreign media was high and gendered, one key motivation for using alcohol was aspirational, particularly among those who consumed Hollywood films. Many of the participants who consumed Hollywood films may have learned to associate heavy consumption with high social status. Importantly, this thesis demonstrates that although local films portray alcohol in a mainly negative light, this also motivates young people to drink as they learn how to use alcohol to ameliorate anxiety or depression. Young people’s drinking patterns were found to be gendered, underscoring a resilient socio-cultural belief in which men see alcohol as good for males while women believe that it should not be confined to men. Consequently, the women employed male-gendered drinking behaviours such as heavy drinking to develop social capital. At the same time, both male and female participants discussed taking part in risky sexual behaviour but the outcomes differed for males and females, with this behaviour being more stigmatised in women. Alcohol advertising and promotion were found to be highly influential because they encourage brand preference and brand allegiance, actively facilitate change of brand, and lead to excessive consumption amongst male and female participants. Although the participants confirmed that promotional activities facilitate alcohol misuse, they argued that promotions should not be regulated because promotional prizes alleviate poverty. This study furthers the discussion on cultivation theory by demonstrating that heavy television viewing cultivates alcohol consumption among this population and it contributes to cultivation and audience research by revealing that negative portrayals can also influence young people. This study’s findings can inform educational campaigns and policy formulation in Nigeria, particularly those that tackle alcohol availability, heavy episodic drinking and risky sexual behaviour; and those that encourage media literacy and more positive and equal relationships between women and men.

This master's thesis explores the impact of marketing communication tools on consumer behavior in the Russian alcohol market. Russia is a dark market. The dark market is a market where outdoor advertising is prohibited, as well as advertising on TV and radio. As such, communications with consumers in these markets are strongly regulated by the government. The study provides an overview of current trends in the alcohol market in the world and in Russia. The purpose of this study is to analyse Russian consumers' perceptions of marketing tools and the impact of these promotion tools on the purchase of strong alcohol under the AIDA model. For this purpose, the study examines the legislation governing the Russian alcohol market. The paper provides a description and classification of channels and instruments used in communications with consumers in the dark market conditions. Further, the perception of these methods by Russian consumers under the AIDA model is considered. The study identified the most effective channels of communication for marketing companies. Moreover, the ethical aspect of promoting alcohol products was discussed. The survey results showed that Russian consumers are loyal to both alcohol advertising and the market in general, as well as to their own brands. These results can be used by companies to create marketing campaigns and plan their budgets.

There has been substantial scientific debate about the impact of alcohol marketing on consumption. Relying mainly on econometric studies, the alcohol industry has traditionally maintained that alcohol marketing does not influence consumption, but is merely limited to brand level effects. Public health advocates, on the other hand, point to consumer-level research that shows a relationship between exposure to marketing and alcohol consumption, especially amongst the young. Recent longitudinal research has firmly established a causal relationship between alcohol marketing and alcohol consumption, giving the upper hand to the public health critics of alcohol marketing. The new consensus forged by these recent cohort studies has led to two separate, but related, debates. In the first instance, having answered the question of whether marketing influences drinking behaviour, there is a need to establish how and when such effects occur. Secondly, in the face of the mounting longitudinal evidence on the effects of marketing, representatives of the alcohol industry have sought to move the debate away from marketing by explicitly highlighting peer influence as a more significant causal factor in problematic youth alcohol consumption. This thesis tackles both of these new questions simultaneously by harnessing insights developed from social norms theory. An online survey (N = 1,071) was administered to undergraduates of the Dublin Institute of Technology in Ireland, and mediation relationships were tested with logistic and multiple linear regression methods as appropriate. Amongst other findings, the main contributions of this thesis are: (1) that marketing may play a key role in establishing perceived social norms around alcohol consumption, and that these perceived norms may act as an indirect pathway for the influence of marketing on behaviour and (2) that the association between alcohol marketing and consumption may increase as levels of engagement with marketing increase; this engagement appears to be at its most potent when marketing facilitates simultaneous interaction between the consumer, the brand and the consumer’s peers in an online social media environment. This thesis helps to move the field of alcohol marketing scholarship beyond questions of whether marketing influences alcohol consumption to how and when that influence occurs. By showing how peers may act as perpetuators and magnifiers of marketing influence it also undermines the argument that peers matter more than marketing, and suggests that peer norms can act as a powerful marketing tool.

Context: There are two ways that digital media may influence alcohol use. The first is commercial alcohol marketing. The second is user-created alcohol promotion, defined as content distributed through new media that promotes consumption, but independent of commercial marketing. This thesis explores how both types of content promote alcohol, what association there is between exposure and alcohol-related attitudes and behaviour, and the differences between marketing and user-created promotion. Method: A mixed method design was employed, divided into two studies. The first was a content analysis of the design features, topical references, and messages suggested about alcohol in digital marketing and user-created promotion on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The second was a cross-sectional survey with young adults (n = 405). This measured awareness of, and participation with, digital marketing and user-created promotion, and the association with consumption, higher-risk drinking, brand recall, expectancies, and drinking motives. Results: The content analysis found that digital marketing had personalised designs which contained subtle and positive messages about consumption, whereas user-created promotion had simpler designs, displayed little ethical practice, and contained overt messages about higher-risk drinking. The cross-sectional survey found that young adults were aware of, and participating with, both digital marketing and user-created promotion, with exposure greater for the latter. Exposure to both types of content was positively associated with alcohol use, higher-risk consumption, and drinking intentions. User-created promotion had a stronger association with all outcomes than marketing. The association between exposure and consumption, for both types of content, was mediated through drinking motives and expectancies. Conclusion: Young adults are aware of, and participating with, a range of digital marketing and user-created promotion. That such exposure is associated with alcohol-related attitudes and behaviour highlights the potential of new media to influence alcohol consumption. Further research is required to better understand young people’s experience with digital media and the challenges of addressing online health risk messages.

This research study will clarify with facts and evidence that drinking alcoholic beverages is a social problem in American society. It will also focus on indepth interviews using the laddering technique on a small sample of eight respondents.