Advertising Association reveals binge drinking research

by Kate Langtry, Brand Republic 24-Jun-08, 15:00

LONDON - The Advertising Association has claimed research shows advertising is much less of a root cause of binge drinking than people following the behaviour of their friends, and is urging the government to tackle the social acceptability of getting drunk.

Research commissioned by the AA argues that social influences operating through personal friendship networks alone explains the large rise in binge drinking among young people seen recently in the UK.

Many previous studies have related movements in alcohol consumption to factors such as disposable income, price and advertising. According to the aA, none of these have taken into account the possible effect of copying the behaviour of others, ie of fashion, as an important causal factor.

The AA commissioned Voltera to conduct a market research survey to discover both the number of binge drinkers in the 18- to 24-year-old population and their friendship patterns in terms of drinking behaviour.

Results showed that there are decisive differences in the drinking behaviour of friends of binge drinkers compared to the drinking behaviour of friends of non-binge drinkers.

Of those who described themselves as binge drinkers, 85% said most or all of their friends binge drink. Only 45% of non-binge drinkers said most or all of their friends binge drink.

Moreover 3% of binge drinkers have no or hardly any friends that binge drink, compared with 22% of non-binge drinkers.

The importance of personal networks also applies to work colleagues -- 65% of binge drinkers think that most or all of their work colleagues binge drink compared to just 34% for non-binge drinkers.

Baroness Peta Buscombe, chief executive of the Advertising Association, said: "This research shows conclusively that the people around us are the key influences in terms of our relationship with alcohol, not alcohol advertising. A new approach to tackle binge drinking is required."

Paul Ormerod, co-author of the research at Volterra, said: "Two key American studies have recently shown that social networks are the key to understanding both the growth of obesity and the decline in smoking. We find exactly the same thing with binge drinking."

The AA's call comes less than a week after the Scottish government called for a pre-watershed ban on alcohol adverts and a ban on alcohol adverts before under-18-rated films.

The UK government is in the middle of a review into the pricing and promotion of alcohol and is considering a ban on alcohol advertising on TV before 6pm.