How adolescents counterargue television beer advertisements: Implications for education efforts

Critical viewing of advertisements is incorporated in many substance abuse and health education programs in hopes of reducing advertising impact on adolescents' behavior. Persuasion research suggests that counterarguing advertisements is crucial to limiting their impact. The present study describes the types of counterarguments generated by 401 Anglo and Latino adolescents who were each exposed to four beer ads from a pool of 48 beer ads randomly selected from network and major national cable network channels. The study also identifies counterarguing differences based on demographic and behavior variables. The most common categories included comments about the absence of portrayals of realistic outcomes of alcohol use; the irrelevance of the associations of the product with social activities, sports, the outdoors, etc.; and the misleading suggestions of social, romantic, or athletic success implied in many ads. Comments that made moral or ethical judgments about the ad were less common. Participants who had been drunk at least once were most likely to point out the lack of realism and irrelevant associations; the highest-risk group, junior high school students who had been drunk, were strikingly less likely to counterargue beer ads than their non-abusing counterparts. Implications for educational intervention design are discussed.