• May 4, 2007

A study by RAND Corp. has found that TV ads for alcohol, which mostly appear during sports programming, are a key factor in drinking among early adolescents--and that even promotional items such as hats, posters or T-shirts had an effect on young people's attitudes and decisions about alcohol.

The study of children in the sixth and seventh grades found that those exposed to alcohol advertising at high levels--from television, magazines, in-store displays and promotional items like T-shirts and posters--were 50% more likely to drink and 36% more likely to intend to drink than children whose exposure to alcohol advertising was very low.

"We were a little surprised by how common these promotional items were," said Rebecca L. Collins, a RAND senior behavioral scientist and lead author of the study, in a news release. "My guess is that many parents think it's harmless: your kid has a Budweiser T-shirt, it's just funny. But it probably is a subtle communication to kids that beer drinking is cool."

Previous studies have found that adolescents on average see at least 245 television ads for alcoholic beverages every year, and that these ads may promote drinking. But the RAND study is unique because it also asked adolescents about advertising in magazines, radio and elsewhere, along with whether they owned any promotional items from alcoholic beverage companies.