It is not a new theory that alcohol companies choose to target adolescents and young adults in their advertising campaigns. Countless studies show that these companies use graphics that are visually stimulating and appealing to people of this age group, and all for logical reasons. Young people are developing and making many important life decisions and adopting new activities, making them more vulnerable and impressionable than the older population who has already taken a stance on the type of lifestyle they want to live. Ninety-nine percent of Americans own a television set, so this is a problem that affects nearly the entire US population. The BLS American Time Use Survey, done in 2012, showed that the average child views 16,000 30-second TV commercials each year.
 
In the teenage years, kids are making decisions on what social scene they want to surround themselves in, as well as balancing schoolwork and extracurricular activities. In the young adult years, people are known to embrace freedoms, such as being able to drink too much. And at this time, people are often experiencing huge life transitions, such as leaving home for the first time, starting college, or starting a new job. It is not fair for alcohol companies to take advantage of this vulnerability and open-mindedness, for the products that they are selling are addictive, harmful to the body, and completely alter a way of life. It is not really debatable that these products do not contribute anything positive to a person's life. Many of the decisions that we make in our adolescent years affect us for the rest of our lives and using products like these is no exception. Studies show that the earlier in life a person beings drinking, the greater their likelihood of suffering alcohol-related social and health problems later on. In comparison to someone who waits until the legal drinking age, a person who beings drinking before the age of fifteen is seven times more likely to be in a vehicle crash under the influence and four times more likely to become alcohol dependent.
 
Alcohol manufacturers tend to utilize the following elements when marketing their products because they have been proven to be the most appealing to adolescents: animals, music, humor, and cartoons. One huge opportunity for alcohol companies to reach younger viewers is during weekend telecasts of college and professional sports events. For instance, Seagram's Crown Royale whiskey commercials feature ducks, peacocks, and dogs during these telecasts, clearly using the animal element to draw the attention of young viewers. In 1996, the Center on Alcohol Advertising conducted research that showed that children ages nine to eleven were more familiar with the Budweiser frogs than with Tony the Tiger (Frosted Flakes mascot) or Smokey Bear (wildfire prevention symbol). These promotions are clearly targeting adolescents by using animals, but it is completely legal. The Beer Institute ad code states that beer makers are free to use any symbol or character if it appeals to people over 21, no matter its appeal to children.

Targeting adolescents was not always so common for alcohol companies, for televisions were never as widely used as they are today. According to an analysis by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY), youth exposure to television alcohol advertising increased 71 percent between 2001 and 2009, more than the exposure of adults ages 21 and over. Also by 2009, the majority of advertising of all alcoholic beverages on cable was occurring during programs that people aged twelve to twenty were more likely to be watching than those 21+. In 2003, the Federal Trade Commission attempted to reduce youth exposure, leading associations representing distilled spirits, wine, and beer to only advertise when less than 30% of the audience is underage. This particular implementation has clearly been ineffective, for in 2009, 7.5% of all alcoholic product placements were on programming with underage audiences greater than 30%.
 
Statistics are important in this social issue because this is something that occurs in every day life, so numbers help to put it into perspective. CAMY contracted Virtual Media Resources to analyze 2.7 million alcohol advertisements from 2001-2009, whose findings included the following statistics for the year 2009. Thirteen percent of youth exposure to these advertisements came from ads placed above the previously mentioned thirty percent ceiling. Forty-four percent came from advertising that was more likely to be seen by twelve to twenty-year-olds than those who can legally drink. There were five cable networks that were found to be the main sources of this exposure: BET, E!, Comedy Central, Spike, and FX. Some individual cable channels do not present alcohol advertising because of the known youthful nature of their audience, but these have a mixed audience. Finally, from 2001-2009, adolescents were twenty-two times more inclined to see a product ad than a "responsibility" ad, whose messages warn against the dangers of drinking and driving and underage drinking ("Youth Exposure to Alcohol Advertising on Television").
 
"Underage drinking is not only against the law, but it affects younger people in a more profound way. Their bodies are still growing and the effects of alcohol could not only be acute but long lasting," says Arturo Gonzalez, MD, of the Arizona Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Not only are adolescents at an extremely impressionable age, but they also tend to be extremely naive when it comes to believing what they hear. Young children especially think that television and other media outlets are completely trustworthy and truthful. How is it fair that companies are actually taking advantage of brains that do not reach full maturity until the age of twenty-five? With such a strong media presence in the lives of modern day teens, it is inevitable that the advertisements they view and commercials they watch would have a large impact on their views. The way that products and certain lifestyles are presented in the media can easily pull young people into thinking that those products are the driving force that brings about good, productive, and happy lives.

So what should America do to prevent teen alcohol and drug use? Though the media plays a large role in the lives of adolescents, it is also a parental responsibility to teach their children the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Many families have a television in a common room of the house that everyone can view at once. When such advertisements appear, parents can use this opportunity to clarify for their teens that what they are seeing is not reality. Parents can also limit screen time and exposure to mature subject matter. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends limiting viewing time to two hours per day. In this day and age, Americans spend great amounts of time watching television, leading many people to associate TV viewing with laziness and negative influences on achievement. A Princeton study on the influence of media on academic achievement, "Moderate TV viewing -- one to ten hours a week -- was positively associated with achievement (compared with no television at all), whereas heavier viewing -- more than eleven hours a week -- was negatively linked with achievement" (Evans Schmidt and Vandewater 64-65). Also in this study, 53% of eight to eighteen-year-olds reported that their parents set no rules in regards to television watching. Among those who reported to having rules, 20% indicated that they were enforced "most of the time". Personally, my parents never restricted what I could watch, so I saw a lot of alcohol advertisements and use of alcohol in shows. My parents trusted me to watch shows that were "appropriate" for my age group because they had taught me right from wrong. However, I was influenced by friends and simply the lure of doing something "wrong", so I would often watch late night shows, which always contain more mature content. 

Alcoholic beverage producers have argued that their public-service campaigns that present the dangers of alcohol are more effective at decreasing alcohol-related problems than government-imposed limits on advertising. This argument is logical because as a nation, we have become inclined to reject our government when they restrict our freedoms. These responsible drinking campaigns are advantageous to the alcohol industry, so I see no reason why more should not be implemented, especially on networks like Comedy Central and FX that are known to have a younger audience watching their mature programs. Laurie Leiber, director of the Center on Alcohol Advertising, says, "The Federal Communications Commission could require networks to provide equal time for healthy-and-safety messages when alcohol commercials air during primetime or sports programs that reach large numbers of underage viewers ("Should the Government Restrict...")". I agree with this solution to a certain extent, however, I think it may not be radical enough to make a difference. Especially when it comes to sports programs, which are known to be for family viewing, alcohol advertisements should not be broadcasted. The Super Bowl, watched in 47.8% of American homes this year, is known for its million-dollar commercials. Each year, after being viewed by an audience that is about 18% underage, the commercials go viral on the Internet and are then viewed by millions more. The Drug Free Action Alliance took a survey of approximately 40,000 6th -- 12th grade students in forty-two states to find which advertisements during Super Bowl XLVI (2012) were the most memorable to them. Doritos, Bud Light, and M&M commercials scored the highest overall.
 
There is a counterargument for alcohol advertising that states that other factors such as peer pressure, watching parents drink, and genetic disposition are what push our youth to drinking. I do not disagree that these elements play an important role in a young person's choice to drink, but research shows that the media is just as influential or even more so. Take the example of general exposure to media. National clothing trends and even slang are reflections of what people view on TV shows because they look to celebrities as role models. Fast food is constantly being advertised on every network, which has been linked to our horrifying rates of childhood obesity. And that annoying jingle in your head? It's from a commercial and has had you thinking about a certain product all day. With such advanced technology, we connect nationally and even internationally through media on a daily basis. It is merely human instinct to do things to fit in and drinking is certainly one of those things. Thus, an advertisement promoting alcohol in a sexual way will plant the idea in a young boy's head that drinking Budweiser will help him get girls. 

It seems ridiculous to ban alcohol advertising completely, considering it is completely legal to purchase and consume alcohol at the age of twenty-one. However, interesting research conducted by Henry Saffer concluded that a ban on broadcast alcohol advertising would decrease deaths due to alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes by 2,000-3,000 people per year. This was based on his comparison of motor-vehicle deaths to quarterly measures for broadcast advertising in 75 media markets over a span of three years. In addition to research on the effects of alcohol advertisements on youth, I studied the effects of tobacco advertisements. Due to FDA regulations put in place in past years, tobacco advertisements in the media have become very limited because of the known harm that the products cause to the body. Tobacco and cigarettes are known to cause gum and lung cancer, while alcohol causes just as many or more health problems. For instance, there are both short-term and long-term effects of alcohol. It interferes with the brain's communication pathways, changing mood and behavior and making it harder to think clearly. Short-term effects also include possible alcohol poisoning and weakening of the immune system, making your body an easy target for disease. Among alcohol's long-term effects on the body are heart damage (cardiomyopathy, stroke, arrhythmias, high blood pressure); liver problems (fibrosis, steatosis); mouth, throat, liver, esophagus, and breast cancer.

No one expects alcohol manufacturers to terminate their campaigns that target adolescents because young people make up such a large percentage of their consumers, but how can only tobacco products have such strict regulations when alcohol is also extremely harmful? For instance, tobacco products cannot be advertised on television or outdoors within one thousand feet of schools and playgrounds. Additionally, cigarettes cannot be promoted in magazines with an audience under 21, nor on any schools' campuses. Ads cannot represent smoking as the way to be cooler, get higher up on the social ladder, or better known to the opposite sex. A few do's of cigarette advertising include ads in facilities where only people 21+ can be admitted and in a retail establishment as long as they are not on the front or back windows. 
Lowering the use of alcohol for those who are underage calls for a combined effort of parental and educational influence and media restrictions. As I said before, parents need to present the dangers of alcohol and if necessary, place parental controls on the television so that their children cannot access channels that are full of mature content. Since alcohol advertisements appear on networks that are usually appropriate for children, exposure is not completely unavoidable, but can certainly be reduced. All middle schools and high schools could implement an alcohol and drug education class that is required to graduate. In such a class, the health risks of drugs and alcohol should be reinforced along with knowledge of the criminal consequences of using these products underage. As for television networks, cable companies could send out surveys to households more frequently to learn the percentage of underage viewers for each channel. If more than 5% of people under the age of 21 are viewing a channel on a regular basis, all alcohol advertisements should be banned. Sports programs should ban these ads completely, especially for the Super Bowl.

There is no doubt that exposure to alcohol in the media has large effects on our youth's decisions to drink underage. However, I believe that with the joint effort of parents, schools, and television networks themselves, underage drinking is an issue that can be minimized.
