• Ad Age, Wednesday, January 4, 2006 11:45 AM

The advertising industry and alcoholic-beverage marketers are fighting back against a controversial new study that claims young people who were exposed to liquor advertising drank more than those who were not. "We've seen over the last several decades that as alcohol-advertising spending increased, underage drinking substantially decreased," said Dick O'Brien, executive vice president of the American Association of Advertising Agencies. "The raw facts of the marketplace contradict the main finding of the report." Also, a spokesman for Miller Brewing Co., a unit of SABMiller, noted that the vast majority of youth in Roper Youth Reports cite their parents as having the most influence over whether they drink. The study looked at alcohol ad spending in 24 major markets and the amounts of alcohol consumed by young people. It claimed that people aged 15 to 26 who saw more alcoholic beverage ads on average drank more than their peers in markets where there was little alcohol advertising.

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