Teen Drinking Media Campaign: Ads, Facts & Evaluation

Media Campaign Overview

A media campaign designed to reduce alcohol use among teens and young adults would draw on the model of the national anti-drug media campaign. The proposed campaign would specifically emphasize that alcohol use is not only dangerous but also fundamentally destructive to the individual and the broader community. It would be a combination campaign using radio, television, and PSAs, but most importantly it would focus on the social media platforms popular among teens — such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter — as well as viral internet sites like YouTube and cell phone communications. The ads would reflect the pervasive nature of these modern communication styles among teens and show how a single night's choices can interrupt a young person's life and long-term opportunities.

Proposed Ad Concepts

The first ad in the series follows an individual through the progression of an evening of partying. The individual begins the night with friends while digital video is recorded by one of them. The night progresses in time-lapses: the individual is videotaped vomiting in a toilet and then passing out on the bathroom floor. Throughout the ad, the individual and others are shown drinking in various ways — a drinking game, a shot contest, body shots — and then dancing provocatively with a stranger. The ad closes with segments showing the video being uploaded to YouTube while everyone involved laughs about the fun they had. The final scene cuts to the mother of one of the girls in the video sitting with her daughter in an OB/GYN clinic, surrounded by depictions of fetal development stages.

A series of television ads would show a young person doing homework being constantly interrupted by cell phone texts, emails, and calls from drunk friends. The student repeatedly rejects the interruptions while trying to study for finals — but eventually sneaks out to join the party. The next scene pans to the same individual sitting in a classroom the following morning, visibly hungover and unable to answer the test questions.

Another television ad shows an individual who was drunk the previous night watching television with younger siblings and parents when their own YouTube video appears on the evening news as part of a story about the dangers of teen drinking. The clip, posted by a friend, shows the individual drinking, dancing recklessly, and being filmed while trying to drive everyone home. At the moment the news story ends, there is a knock at the front door. Police officers ask for the individual featured in the video, reach into the home with handcuffs, and place the individual in a patrol car. In a subsequent scene set in an interrogation room, the individual is asked who provided the alcohol and answers, "Alex's dad" — who is then shown being handcuffed by officers at another location.

Another ad involves a YouTube video that a friend posted from the previous weekend's party, which someone forwarded to the school principal. The principal is first shown telling a colleague his choice for valedictorian, citing both grades and exemplary public behavior. Brief positive clips of the student reinforce this image. The principal then walks into his office, opens an email, and clicks a YouTube link showing the same student in a drunken stupor attempting to rehearse a valedictorian speech while mocking the principal for being fooled by the student's public persona.

An additional ad presents a news exposé about job candidates rejected because a graphic YouTube video has surfaced showing them behaving lewdly while drunk. An HR manager at a prestigious firm, who saw the video on the news the night before, watches it again with a colleague and laughs. The intercom announces that his 12:30 interview candidate is waiting in the lobby. The executive closes the YouTube page, the colleague exits, and the main figure from the video walks into the room. The executive's face registers surprise and discomfort. The ad skips forward to the close of the interview: the executive shakes the candidate's hand as they leave, then walks back to his desk, throws away the résumé, and calls for the next interview.

Radio and PSA ads would repeat the core messages of the television ads, translated into formats appropriate to those venues.

Impetus for the Campaign: Why Teen Drinking Is Dangerous

Teen alcohol use and abuse is one of the most significant health threats faced by young people, yet rapid communications technology has made it easy for many teens to treat the problem as exciting rebellion freely broadcast online. One of the primary reasons teen drinking is so prevalent is that alcohol is a widely available and legal drug — teens often assume it is harmless because adults drink regularly and it is sold legally. Alcohol may also be their substance of choice simply because it is cheap and easily accessible, with adults — sometimes trusted ones — willing to purchase it for them (Smart, Adlaf, & Walsh, 1996). Parents and other adults are often convinced that providing alcohol in a supervised setting will reduce negative consequences, yet research suggests the opposite:

"Youth who reported that a parent or a friend's parent had provided alcohol at a party within the past year reported drinking more on their last drinking occasion and were twice as likely to have consumed alcohol within the past 30 days and to have engaged in binge drinking." (Foley et al., 2004)

This finding also reflects the widespread teen perception that drinking is a rite of passage — something nearly everyone does, and something that is simply fun. Most teens never seriously consider that they will be caught. The proposed year-long media campaign places greater emphasis on the social, legal, and emotional consequences of drinking — specifically the scenarios in which a single decision leads to a worst-case outcome. Fear of personal or social shame, or the loss of individual opportunities, appears to be among the most compelling deterrents for teens. The campaign supports the idea of drinking as pure fun right up until the moment the individual is caught in one of several scenarios: peer rejection, academic failure, legal consequences, discovery by parents or authority figures, unwanted pregnancy, and rejection from a prestigious job.

Because accidents are the leading cause of death among teens, adding alcohol only worsens the risk — impaired judgment, coordination, and physical ability all increase the likelihood of a fatal outcome. However, the campaign does not lead with death as a deterrent, because statistics suggest this fear does not resonate with teens. "Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for people from 2 to 34 years old." (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2008) Beyond accident risk, there is strong evidence that alcohol causes permanent physical changes to the developing adolescent brain. Critically, the younger a person is when they begin drinking — even at low levels — the more likely they are to develop alcoholism later in life, a risk that even overrides a known genetic predisposition (Butler, July 4, 2006).

Alcohol use may begin as an exciting experiment or as a way for a teen to feel connected to a peer group, easing the social awkwardness of adolescence. Yet teen drinking can spiral into a social disaster involving legal problems, death of friends or family members, and increased risk of teen pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections. "Sixty percent of college women diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease were drunk at the time of infection." (Advocacy Institute, 1992, as cited in Sound Vision Foundation, 2009) This does not account for long-term consequences such as permanent alcoholism or dependence on harder substances (Ponton, 1997). "In a 2001 survey, 41% of frequent binge drinkers reported having unplanned sex and 21% reported having unsafe sex as a result of their drinking in the past year." (Cooper, March 2002)

Alcohol use may seem like a fun pastime or a social lubricant, but even a single experience with it demonstrates that there is always a point at which drinking goes too far — and when it does, people get hurt, physically and emotionally, either from their own behavior or from the impaired decisions of others around them.

Getting caught can also be a frightening and costly experience, as parents, police, school administrators, and other authorities apply zero-tolerance policies in an effort to stop teen drinking. At minimum, a teen can lose the trust of family and teachers. A driver's license can be suspended — even if the individual was not driving, but merely caught holding alcohol or present at a party where underage drinking occurred. Many states impose an immediate 90-day to one-year suspension of driving privileges for anyone under 21 caught drinking, holding alcohol, or attempting to purchase it (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2008).

Images of teens in compromised or embarrassing situations appear to be more effective deterrents than the scare tactics used in many conventional campaigns. Alcohol, unlike food, is not slowly digested — the speed at which it is consumed, such as during binge drinking, significantly affects how quickly intoxication sets in and how long it lasts. In most states, the legal threshold for intoxication is a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08, which typically corresponds to a single drink consumed in one hour — one 12-ounce beer or a smaller quantity of hard liquor (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, June 2003).

The effects of alcohol on the adolescent brain are distinct because, despite outward appearances, the teen brain is still developing. The ongoing development of the brain, combined with the flood of hormones characteristic of adolescence, already predisposes teens to risk-taking that most adults would avoid. This means that simply being offered alcohol is dangerous — teens have a limited capacity to decline, even when they intellectually know better (Spear, 2002). MRI imaging of progressive brain growth from age 5 to age 20 shows that during the teen years, large portions of the brain have not yet established complete neural pathways. Many researchers believe this explains why teens are not fully capable of connecting the thinking part of the brain to the action-regulating part (Eide Neurolearning Blog, March 14, 2005). Teens are not swayed by this kind of information precisely because being in that developmental period makes it nearly impossible to see outside of it — and because it does not address their more immediate desire to be accepted and treated as equals.

There is also substantial evidence that alcohol affects teens more severely than adults — even a single drink may exceed what a teenager can handle, and binge drinking can produce a higher degree of intoxication than it would in an adult of the same size (Hannigan, Spear, Spear, & Goodlett, 1999, p. 257). Without experience handling alcohol, and given the unique circumstances of adolescent brain and body development, alcohol can turn a good night out with friends into a nightmare that lasts a lifetime.

Many teens choose to ride with a driver who has been drinking rather than risk getting home late or calling a parent for a ride. Research shows that girls are more likely to ride with drunk drivers, while boys are more likely to drive after drinking. According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, eight young people die every day in alcohol-related car accidents (Sound Vision Foundation, 2009). "On average, someone is killed by a drunk driver every 40 minutes." (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2008)