Alcohol Advertising and the Youth

This artice is about the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth researching the Youth (age 12-20) and adults (above the legal drinking age of 21) and their exposure to alcohol advertising on television, radio, magazines, and internet. The research shows that in the U.S, alcohol companies advertise more where the youth are more likely to see then adults. It is disocvered that the youth exposed to alcohol advertising in various venues such as sporting events, broadcast, print or outdoor will have increased and heavier drinking among youth people.

"Found that teens with alcohol use disorders show greater activity in areas of the brain previously linked to reward, desire, postive affect and episodic recall in response to alcoholic beverage advertisements..."(Jernigan). This means that alcohol advertising has a effect on youth who are already heavy drinkers. This article discussed methods to finding this information from research. 13 is the average age of initiation into alcohol use in the U.S.

Alcohol internet advertising was researched in which 55 alcohol company websites were tracked. Many of these sites had video games, free music downloads, and screen savers. In 2003 almost 700,000 underage youths visited these sites. http://www.bacardi.com/ had 60% of the views from underage people http://www.skyy.com/ had half of its viewers underage. This is an alarming amount of youth visiting these alcohol sites. The way they heard about these products were from other advertisments from the media, and these advertisments were clearly effective because they caught these youths interest and made them explore more into it. Budweisser was the most popular beer website. To reduce this exposure, the trade associations revised standards for alcohol ad placements.

Work Cited:
Jernigan, David H., Joshua Ostroff, and Craig Ross. "Alcohol Advertising and Youth: A Measured Approach." Journal of Public Health Policy 26.3 (2005): 312-325. JSTOR

Pepsi, the Superbowl, and the Internet

For the 2010 Super Bowl, Pepsi announced that they were not going to be a sponsor. I was completely surprised by this decision because they had been a sponsor for the past 23 years. Millions of fans watch the Super Bowl and Pepsi was a popular company in which viewers looked forward to their commercials. They have had famous celebrities in their commercials in the past such as Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, and Ozzy Osbourne.

Pepsi was making a risky choice on pulling out of the super bowl and instead to advertise online. It could either be a success or fail.

The internet is gaining popularity for advertising aiming to attract Generation X, Generation Y, the Millenial Generation, or baby boomers. Internet technology has major advantages. Companies are able to have their ads be effectively targeted to the right demographics (age, income, location).

"By providing the proper consumer profile and keywords, an Internet Advertiser is able to place their ads in front of prospects at a much lower per image cost than tradition media advertising" (Weaver).

Internet advertising has the advantage of being cheaper then other types of advertising but my question is how effective it really is. I know I don't usually pay attention to the internet ads when I am online trying to do something. I don't think Pepsi should have made such a drastic decision by turning away from the super bowl. It was a very big risk.

Source:

Weaver, Rick. "Pepsi drops Super Bowl ads, emphasizes Internet advertising." Review. Web log post. Examiner. 17 Dec. 2009. Web. .

Web sites selling cigarettes: how many are there in the USA and what are their sales practices?

I found this article very interesting. The reason for this article choice is that I always wondered how smokers could save money on cigarettes due to the never ending increase of state taxes. Currently, cigarettes in Connecticut are almost up to $8 a pack. This article was written in 2001 so I am sure the number of online purchases have greatly increased since the state has not slowed down on taxing smokers.

Tobacco products are a major retail item in the USA. In 2001, there were over 47 million adults and 4 million teenagers who smoked cigarettes. The annual sales of tobacco products exceed $40 billion.

Smokers usually purchase cigarettes by the pack or by the carton from local retail outlets but there is new competition that can be found online from a growing number of e-commerce sites. Due to the fact that there are more people online, these online outlets are getting an increase in sales. "Increased state taxes on cigarettes have fueled demand among smokers who seek refuge from escalating retail prices".

Cheap cigarettes can be found now just a click away.

There are over 130 sites selling cigarettes in which at least three dozen of them are operated by the Senecca Indians in Western New York.

Some promotional strategies these sites use include reduce price specials, free gifts with purchase, and monthly specials. The purchasing method included buyers could order directly online or by phone and the most common used payment method was credit card. These sites sold a wide range of cigarette products that include premium, discounts, and value brand.

The problem found in all of this is that it was found that only 28% of the sites had the US Surgeon General Warning. However, 81% had a warning about the minimum age of sale for tobacco products.

Many states fear that the growth of sales online will lead to decreased cigarette tax revenues. In a prospective view; "Forrester Research estimated that in 2005, 14% of tobacco sales will occur online and that states will lose an estimated $1.4 billion in tax revenue. My feelings on this is simple, let the smokers buy cigarettes from where ever they want. If buying online is legal, which it is and will save them money, and they want to continue to smoke, then it is a good deal for them. The state tax smokers all the time with a very significant increase each time so if they are going to lose so much money on not getting cigarette taxes from smokers then tax someone else. I'm sure there are other items/ people that states can tax to make up for that loss. It is unfair to the smokers to be continously taxed so if they have somewhere else to buy them other then locally and it happens that the state is losing money from them, oh well.

Source:

Kim, A.E., Ribisl M.K., & Williams S.R. "Websites Selling Cigarettes: How Many Are There in the U.S.A and What Are Their Sales Practices. Tobacco Control. 2001. JSTOR. BMJ Publishing Group. 352-359