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February 9 2010
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African-American Youth and Alcohol Advertising The prevalence and consequences of underage drinking among African-American youth
Prevalence and consequences of underage drinking among African-American youth: • Alcohol is the drug most widely used by African-American youth.1 • Although African-American youth drink less than other youth (according to the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 19.1% of African Americans between 12 and 20 used alcohol in the 30 days prior to the survey, compared to 32.6% of whites, and 9.9% of African-American youth reported "binge" drinking, compared to 22.8% of whites),2 there is evidence from public health research that, as they age, African Americans suffer more from alcohol-related diseases than other groups in the population. • The age-adjusted death rate from alcohol-related diseases for non-Hispanic African Americans is 10% greater than for the general population.3 • National surveys have found that while frequent heavy drinking among white 18-29 year-old males dropped between 1984 and 1995, rates of heavy drinking and alcohol problems remained high among African Americans in the same age group.4 • Alcohol use contributes to the three leading causes of death among African-American 12 to 20 year-olds: homicide, unintentional injuries (including car crashes), and suicide.5 Exposure of African-American young people to alcohol advertising in 2004: In magazines: • Twenty-seven percent of African-American teens ages 12-17 and 21% of African Americans ages 18-20 are among the most frequent magazine readers, versus 18% and 13% of non-African Americans in these age groups.6 • Youth exposure to alcohol advertising in national magazines has fallen substantially since 2001. However, in 2004, youth were still overexposed to magazine advertising relative to adults. In 2004 youth ages 12 to 20 saw 15% more advertising for beer and 10% more advertising for distilled spirits (the largest category of magazine alcohol advertising) per capita than adults age 21 and over.7 In this context of general overexposure, African-American youth saw even more advertising for these products in magazines in 2004 than youth in general.8 • African-American youth saw 34% more alcohol advertising in national magazines than did youth in general in 2004. Compared to the average for all youth, African-American youth saw 21% more advertising for beer and ale, 42% more advertising for distilled spirits, 6% less advertising for "alcopops"9 such as Smirnoff Ice and Mike's Hard Lemonade, and 3% less advertising for wine brands.10 • While 97% of all youth saw an average of 113 alcohol ads in magazines, 99% of African-American youth saw an average of 150 alcohol ads in national magazines in 2004.11 • African-American youth also more advertising per capita for beer and ale, distilled spirits and alcopops than African-American adults: they saw 23% more beer and ale advertising, 7% more distilled spirits advertising, and 12% more advertising for alcopops than African-Americans age 21 and over.12 • In 2004, out of 211 alcohol brands advertising in national magazines, just 22 brands – including six cognac or brandy brands – accounted for more than half of African-American youth exposure but less than a third of total spending in magazines.13 • Alcohol advertisers concentrated the advertising that overexposed African-American youth in 14 magazines accounting for 75% of the exposure of African-American youth to alcohol advertising in 2004, including Sports Illustrated, Vibe, Stuff, Entertainment Weekly, The Source, InStyle and Vogue. All the aforementioned titles exposed African-American youth to alcohol ads more effectively than youth in general. They also exposed African-American youth more effectively than African-American adults.14 On the radio: • African-American teens ages 12-17 listen to more than 17 hours of radio per week on average, compared to 13.25 hours for all teens.15 • In a sample of 67,404 occurrences of advertising airing in 104 markets for the 25 leading alcohol brands in June- July of 2004, African-American youth heard 15% more alcohol advertising per capita than youth in general.16 • In 25 of 104 markets and in six of the top ten markets—which contain approximately 27% of the total U.S. population but 34% of the African-American population—African-American youth heard more alcohol advertising on the radio per capita than youth in general. These six markets were New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston-Galveston, and Detroit.17 • Measured in gross impressions, a standard measure of advertising exposure that represent the total number of advertising exposures for a given population, a single brand, Colt 45 Malt Liquor, accounted for nearly a third of African-American youth exposure to alcohol advertising on the radio, while it and Hennessey Cognacs were the two brands that most disproportionately exposed African-American youth compared with all youth.18 On television: • Thirty-nine percent of African-American teens ages 12 to 17 are among the most frequent viewers (the top quintile) of cable TV, a fast-growing medium for alcohol advertisers, versus 16% of non-African-American teens.19 • Alcohol advertisers spent nearly $4.8 million in 2004 to place ads on all 15 of the programs most popular with African-American youth,20 including Girlfriends, Half & Half, CSI and Without a Trace.21 • Three leading alcoholic beverage brands (Bud Light, Heineken Beer and Miller Genuine Draft) accounted for more than half of the spending on this advertising.22 • On BET (Black Entertainment Television), a cable television network targeting African-American audiences, overall alcohol spending as well as spending on the programs generating the greatest youth exposure to alcohol advertising increased from 2003 to 2004.23 • In 2004, 72% of alcohol advertising spending on BET was on ten programs that were more likely to be seen by youth than by adults. On these programs, as well as across all the BET programming containing alcohol advertising, young people ages 12 to 20 were more than twice as likely to be in the audience than adults age 21 and over.24 Alcohol marketing and the African-American community: • The marketing of alcohol products in African-American communities has, on occasion, stirred national controversy and met with fierce resistance from African Americans and others. Charges of over-concentration of alcohol billboards in African-American neighborhoods have prompted protests and legislative fights in Chicago, Milwaukee, Baltimore, Los Angeles and elsewhere.25 • Battles over the heavy marketing to the African-American community of malt liquor, a stronger-than-average beer, resulted in the banning of one new brand, PowerMaster, in the summer of 1991, and fines against the makers of another, St. Ides Malt Liquor, by the states of New York and Oregon, for advertising practices that allegedly targeted youth and glamorized gang activity.26 • African-American youth culture already abounds with alcohol products and imagery. A content analysis of 1,000 of the most popular songs from 1996 to 1997 found that references to alcohol were more frequent in rap (47% of songs had alcohol references) than other genres such as country-western (13%), top 40 (12%), alternative rock (10%), and heavy metal (4%); and that 48% of these rap songs had product placements or mentions of specific alcohol brand names.27 • Rap music videos analyzed for a study published in 1997 contained the highest percentage of depictions of alcohol use of any music genre appearing on MTV, BET, CMT and VH-1.28 • A recent study of alcohol mentions in rap music found that from 1979 to 1997 such references increased five-fold, with a particular increase in appearances of liquor and champagne brands after 1994. From 1994 to 1997, 71% of the rap songs that mentioned alcohol in this study's sample named a specific alcohol brand.29 Updated June 2006
1J.M. Wallace Jr. et al., "The Epidemiology of Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Use among Black Youth," Journal of Studies on Alcohol 60 (1999): 800-809.
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