Youth Overexposed: Alcohol Advertising in Magazines, 2001 to 2003

Distilled spirits and beer advertising in national magazines between 2001 and 2003 consistently reached more underage youth than adults on a per capita basis, according to an analysis by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) of 10,455 alcohol ads costing almost $1 billion. Major findings from this analysis include the following:

• The beer industry led the way in this "overexposure" of underage youth, delivering 52%, 57%, and 48% more advertising to underage youth than to adults on a per capita basis in 2001, 2002 and 2003 respectively.
• The distilled spirits industry delivered 33%, 23% and 20% more advertising to underage youth than to adults on a per capita basis in 2001, 2002 and 2003 respectively. However, the dominance in spending by distilled spirits companies (see below) meant that the volume of distilled spirits advertising reaching underage youth overwhelmed that of beer.
• Collectively, underage youth overexposure to alcohol advertising declined from 26% to 15% during this period as companies moved more of their ad placements to publications with 30% or less underage youth readership (see below), the spending on advertising for "alcopops" declined, and wine advertising continued its trend of not overexposing underage youth in general.