Alcohol advertisement should be banned from television - Admission/Application Essay Example

Due: Research paper: Alcohol advertisement should be banned from television Alcohol advertising basically involves the promotion of different alcoholic beverages of alcohol producers through various media platforms. The advertising are majorly based on a marketing perspectives, with very little intentions of drawing individuals considered as minor into drinking habits. Most alcoholic beverages are commonly advertised in many countries across the world. There are only several countries where advertisement of alcohol is banned, majority of which are in the Middle East. With the emergence of advanced technologies and a great availability of televisions as well as visual media platforms, such adverts have in the recent past been on the rise, predisposing legally underage people into habits of drinking and alcoholism as a very early age (Dade & Penny 102). Due to this reason, alcohol advertisement on television should be completely banned as they promote drinking, since they greatly affect an individual’s decision to drink, subsequently increasing the rate of alcohol abuse in America. Conversely, alcohol television advertisements are business communication through television as a form of mainstream media usually geared towards delivery of information to increase popularity of the specific alcoholic drinks. It is considered as an activity made in a bid to persuade, manipulate, and encourage an audience to take a specific action. Generally, advertising pursues the influence of consumer behavior to purchase items in a partisan way. Advertising is a political way of influencing consumers to buy a particular product and incur the opportunity cost of buying another item of similar utility (OGuinn et al 89). Alcoholic television advertisement invests in diverse are commonly used to get more people into taking more alcoholic drinks, as the companies that supply such drinks make soaring profits. According to scientific research and evidences based on past scholarly studies, alcohol is found to highly influence decision of different people into taking alcohol. Advertisements on televisions are found to directly affect people’s decisions in regard to taking the ultimate decision of consuming alcohol due to the fact that most of these adverts occur more frequently on commercial breaks. Majority of these studies found out that the relationship between alcoholic related acts and television advertisement are much close, attributed to the time they are presented on television. In this case, it is essential to acknowledge that most advertisement are most displayed during popular television programs as commercial breaks. For instance, in the United States and United Kingdom, most commercials with much influence are the ones that displayed during the 10 O’clock news, which is the most watched program in the two countries. If alcohol advertisements are displayed during this time, most people will obvisouly be exposed to them, subsequently predisposing them to the consumption of alcohol (OGuinn et al 89). Previous studies insinuated that the intentions of the advertiser is mainly to lure more people into growing interest into their product. The advertisements are usually customized and graphically enhanced to lure people into developing a drinking habit. Although many advertisements are not directly created to tell or to encourage drinking, their creation is usually based on increasing the sales of specific alcoholic drinks, which may subsequently mean an influence on non-drinkers. Having more advertisements of alcohol easily increasing the overall sale of alcohol of the involved company. The growing number of advertisements of alcoholic products on television in the modern society directly reflects on the impact of the use of such adverts on the people. In the contemporary communities, majority of alcoholic manufacturing companies have subsequently been spending millions of dollars in television advertising of their alcoholic products. This means that the advertisements have a positive impact on people, hence the companies are able to increase their sales. It would be impossible for any company to spend huge amount of their revenues in televisions advertisements if the ads do not reflect on a positive outcome. Therefore, it is essential to note that the alcohol producing companies fully understand the effects of making such advertisements, thus they primarily rely on them as one of the marketing strategies (Dade & Penny 102). The reason that the adverts are used by the alcohol manufacturing companies to target increased sales reflects on its intention of lured more people into habits of alcoholism. In the United States, there have had many disputed in regard to the rightful age of drinking. With such disputes being a critical concern, the age limit has been changing from 18 years of age to 21 years and vice versa. Currently, the age limit for drinking in the US is 21 year which is one of the main reasons attributed to various predisposing factors to alcoholism like television advertisement of alcohol beverages. The age limit was moved from 18 years to 21 years typically because it is believed that habits of alcoholism are likely to be propelled by advertisements, particular over television (OGuinn et al 89). Although there are awareness messages that accompany all television advertisements of alcohol beverages, the overall message only encourages people to drinking, making it difficult for people to have conscious mind while making the ultimate decisions of taking alcoholic drink. Advertisement of alcohol presents serious challenges to the lives of many people, especially the working-class and the under-aged. This is because it influences the economic status and moral behavior of a person. Researchers have arrived at divergent opinions as to the effects of alcohol consumption. While healthcare providers conclude that advertisement of alcohol does not increase or influence consumption, businesspeople arrive at appositively differing answers. Providers of healthcare state that advertisement of alcohol influences only those who are used to taking it (Saffer et al 90). Empirical data collected by businesspeople who deal with alcohol reveal that advertisement of a brand increases its sales. These results are not in any way appealing as they translate to increase diseases that are associated with alcohol. These diseases include cirrhosis and liver cancer, among others. Morality and loss of acceptable ethics is widely lost in advertisement of alcohol brands. This is because alcohol adverts incorporate people who demonstrate decayed behavior that has been exterminated in the society. Many people who take part in advertisement do use all their abilities to lure the public to consume alcohol. In this case, they venture into activities that cannot fit into the set standards (Dade & Penny 102). For instance, there are those adverts whereby naked women are seen demonstrating the unconsciousness effects of alcohol. Drunkards tend to emulate this behavior, hence destroying the set moral standards of the society. According to the previous surveys that have been made by economist, television advertisement in the alcohol industry tends to present challenges in local and international market. In terms of industry-level response function, advertisement is done with time-series national data. In this case, an advertisement is made by incorporating cross-sectional data from local markets. From the local market advertisement, simple predictions are made. These include the probability of little response when the advertisement is done at a high enough level of consumption and an upward sloping section of the response function when it is done with a high variety of data (OGuinn et al 89).. This means that local advertisement needs prior research to estimate areas that need such publications. Oligopolistic competition can be created due to lack of prior research of the market. Historical trend of alcohol behavior in relation to television advertisements American history of alcohol is quite phenomenal when closely looked at over the years as from as early as 18th century. It is stated that immediately after the infamous 18th amendment of the United States constitution started to take effect, there was a significant decrease in Alcohol consumption the many attest to have been advocated that the entire control would be a success, typically because issues of adverts were not present during that time. During the early 1920s, alcohol consumption rate decreased by over 30 percent in comparison with the years before the prohibition (Behr, 106). However, later in this decade, as more and more illegal supplies thrived throughout the United States as well as an introduction of a new generation, which subsequently ignored the law and other openly rejected the attitude of self-sacrifice, it is said that more people in American once again decided to indulge. As a matter of fact, in a sense, the alcohol control was a success if only for the reason that it took many years after the repeal before rates equaled those before the prohibition period. Apparently, the history of alcohol in the United States could be analyzed much better by focusing in the period before the prohibition, within the prohibition and subsequently after. Looking at the rates of consumption of alcohol during the time before control and soon after the ban, alcohol consumption substantially decreased by bigger margins (Tracy, 213). Although television adverts were not present, it was People began to revoke the prohibition and seeing it as a limitation to their basic rights, the rates of alcohol consumption in the later years of prohibition, probably in the late 1920s, significantly rose to even surpass the earlier rates before the ban. Furthermore, advocates for the alcohol control state thought that once the subsequent liquor rates were revoked, the reform organization as well as the church would persuade the United States populations not to drink. The liquor traffickers on the other hand would not oppose the new laws and therefore saloons would eventually disappear. Literally there were basically two schools of thought among those in support of the alcohol control (Burns, 112). The people in support of the prohibition were thus inadequate in their support procedures as well as on their policies in enhancing a full ban of the alcohol. Despite the ban, many prohibitionists would not believe that people were still consuming alcohol and more interestingly, the rates though had gone in the earlier years of the ban, the started shooting up few years later during the prohibition period. During the period of alcohol control in the US, a certain group was created hoping to run successive educational campaigns that would ensure that within thirty years upon commencement of their awareness, America would be an absolute drink free nation. Unfortunately, this group is said to have never received any support they were direly looking for in the entire country (Burns, 112). There were generally mixed reaction from prohibitionists, as another group still during this period of alcohol control, wanted to see a significant vigorous enforcement, which was projected to completely wipe all out all the alcohol supplies in the United States. In another turn of events, the group was also very much disappointed as law enforcement could not practically get all the support it may have needed from the United States government for a thorough all out enforcement campaign. The success of alcohol control would not be easily achieved during the prohibition period. This is because of the great depression, and thus funding of law enforcers to contain the situation and ensure that even aspect of the ban was affective, was not practically possible. During the time of depression, it is estimated that there were only 1,200 agents across the entire region of America. Therefore, it was genuinely not possible for those agents to compete with tens of thousands of people in the country who either wanted to drink or wanted to continue making profit from others drinking. Such law enforcers ended up being corrupt, as illegal alcohol manufacturing, distribution and subsequently sale thrived in the entire country (Tracy, 213). The Americans were thus know to get whatever they wanted by whatsoever means during this time, with majority of people in the United States highly engaging in the use of alcohol, proving the bill to be quite insensitive and uniformed. It is during the alcohol control state period that the innovation of Americans to strive to have what they want was quite evident. This is in regard to the resourcefulness people used in order to obtain alcohol beverages during the time of probation. More interestingly, the prohibition era saw a subsequent rise of the speakeasy, bootlegger, home distiller, rum-runner and significantly many other gangster myths that were practically associated with alcohol activities. It is important to understand that even despite the ban, many rural populations began making their own hooch, which was literally a near beer and corn type of whiskey. Although concerns for the ban of alcohol across United States was primarily from church groups in the country, some of the rural communities were not contented with such actions and thus they also developed their own alcoholic drinks (Burns, 112). This totally shows that the entire ban was not justified to the majority of the people in the United States and would subsequently not succeed. More people in the rural America highly thrived in the illegal manufacture, distribution and sale of alcohol in many parts of the country. Conclusion In conclusion, television advertisement of alcohol is a complicated issue that has never been solved. Many researches have been initiated to ascertain the best way to market alcohol to the responsible people without creating unnecessary harm to their health and other people. It is hoped that these researches will discover better ways of marketing alcohol by putting into consideration morals of the society and health of the consumers. It is certain that the popularity of television adverts on alcohol subsequently encourage people to taking alcohol and therefore should be completely banned. Works Cited Tracy, Sarah W. Altering American Consciousness: The History of Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States, 1800-2000. Amherst, Mass. [u.a.: Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 2004. Print. Burns, Eric. The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004. Print. Behr, Edward. Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America. New York: Arcade Publ, 1996. Print. Saffer, Henry, and Dhaval Dave. Alcohol Advertising and Alcohol Consumption by Adolescents. Cambridge, Mass: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2003. Print OGuinn, Thomas C, Chris T. Allen, and Richard J. Semenik. Advertising and Integrated Brand Promotion. Mason, OH: South-Western, Cengage Learning, 2012. Print. Dade, Penny. Drink Talking: 100 Years of Alcohol Advertising. London: Middlesex University Press, 2008. Print. Read More