Teenage Drinking In Advertising

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Zachary Warren Melissa Turner English 111 14 September 2015 Teenage Drinking The consumption of alcohol has been made to look like a fun and enjoyable experience, and teens want to seem cool so they engage in underage drinking. With the dawning of companies going digital, companies, especially alcohol companies, have recently started using television commercials to advertise their products. These commercials portray the drinking of alcohol to be fun and they show people having a good time with friends, which is very appealing to teenagers. The appearance of sex appeal in these commercials and the peer pressure from friends make this act even more attractive to teens. The presence of drinking amongst teen cliques also creates a feeling of peer …show more content…

Amy Bax, a writer for Gaebler Ventures states, “Using sex appeal in advertising is a time-tested technique that will probably be with us forever.” Companies incorporate it into their ads because it grabs the attention of the person watching it. One commercial in particular that demonstrates this type of advertising is a commercial for Dos Equis beer. In these commercials Jonaan Goldsmithth is surrounded by beautiful women who seem to be draped all over him. Many teens might see this advertisement and think that if they are drinking this beer, then they will have a better chance of attracting someone and their possibilities of having sex will increase; to hormone driven teenagers, especially teenage boys, that is a big incentive to …show more content…

During their adolescent years, all teens are looking for a way to fit in with others; being different is not the “cool” thing to do, and if that means drinking alcohol, many teens are willing to do that so they can fit in. In the teenage mind, being a part of something and fitting in is everything, and if “everyone else” is drinking then they feel they need to drink to fit in. Through their eyes, if someone is not a part of some sort of group then there must be something wrong with them, and in many cases, that can lead to bullying and ultimately that person being seen as an object to poke fun at. Data from an Alcohol Alert survey done in 2005 by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, which was featured in Alcohol Research & Health, showed that: 3/4 of 12th graders, more than 2/3 of 10th graders, and about two in every five 8th graders have consumed alcohol. And when they drink they tend to drink intensively, often consuming four to five drinks at one time. MTF data show that 11 percent of 8th graders, 22 percent of 10th graders, and 29 percent of 12th graders had engaged in heavy episodic or binge drinking within the past two weeks.

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