Consumption and advertising of alcoholic beverages in Australia, 1969-86

The objective of the study was to examine the relationship between alcohol consumption per adult (>/=15 years old) and expenditure on alcohol advertising per adult in Australia for the 18 years from 1969 to 1986. In addition, analyses were made of the extent to which annual changes in consumption were related to annual changes in advertising. The results showed that at the macro or aggregate level, alcohol advertising appeared to have little or no effect on alcohol consumption. By contrast, the level of consumption was positively related to the level of advertising 42 months later. In the very short term, an increase in consumption was followed by a decrease in advertising, and vice versa. The Australian results were found to be consistent with a large number of overseas studies which failed to find that alcohol advertising increased total consumption, although the advertising may have affected brand and beverage preferences. Attention is drawn to a number of methodological issues relevant to the study, and in particular the need for evaluation studies of specific advertising campaigns.