Strategies for reducing youth exposure to alcohol advertising on cable television in the United States

Background: Alcohol advertising has been shown to be an independent risk factor for drinking initiation, binge drinking, and harmful consequences of drinking. Alcohol companies are themselves responsible for regulating their advertising practices in the United States, publishing voluntary guidelines for placement of advertisements in media where the adult audience is proportional to the adult population of the United States. On average,14% of youth exposure to alcohol advertising on cable television, more than 13 billion advertising impressions from 2005-2011, comes from ads that do not comply with alcohol industry guidelines. Methods: We use multivariate modeling to identify factors associated with non-compliant ad placements on cable television and develop strategies for reducing youth exposure from non-compliant ads. Results: The primary factors associated with non-compliant ad placements are placements on low-rated cable programs with unstable audience measurements and placements on networks with high youth audiences. We describe three strategies for reducing youth exposure from non-compliant ad placements due to these factors and demonstrate how much we expect youth exposure to be reduced as a result. Conclusion: Three simple strategies could be implemented by alcohol companies to reduce youth exposure to advertising from non-compliant ad placements. Future monitoring of alcohol advertising should focus on efforts by alcohol advertisers to employ such strategies to improve compliance with their own self-regulatory guidelines.