Date of Award

2003

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Master of Business

School

School of Marketing, Tourism and Leisure Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Business and Public Management

First Supervisor

Kate Mizerski

Abstract

Adolescent binge-drinking is an area of great concern in Australia as it is with many other developed countries around the world. Every year in Australia, Commonwealth and State health authorities invest considerable resources into trying to address this issue and the results have been described as being at best, mixed. Health promotion initiatives such as school programmes, media promotion and health programmes coupled w1th restrictions on supply of alcohol are all used to try and curb the incidence of adolescent binge drinking. In recent years television advertising has specifically been used to try and curb the incidence of adolescent binge-drinking behaviour. The aim of this study was to look more closely at the likely effectiveness of those advertising executions that are now commonly used to influence adolescents' attitudes and behaviours toward alcohol. To this end, three advertising executions were presented to 720 Perth school students who were mostly aged between 14-15 years old. The three advertising executions differed in that one was of a positive appeal execution type, one was of a negative advertising execution type, and the other was of a 'combination' negative/positive advertising execution type. After a review of the literature the expectation was that the combination advertising execution would most likely be the most effective advertising executions. The findings of this study were however, different to expectation. It was found that the negative execution performed similarly or perhaps even marginally better than the combination execution. In contrast, the positive execution appeared to carry less impact with adolescent audiences suggesting that of the three execution styles it is probably the least effective method for communicating to adolescents about alcohol restraint. In addition to these investigations into advertising executions other background research was also conducted. This research explored adolescent attitudes toward the whole idea of anti-binge drinking advertising. This area of investigation was thought to be important because marketing theory suggests that advertising requires positive attitudes from it's audiences to work at an optimum level. For example, it has been suggested that a positive attitude toward an advertisement not only makes the audience more receptive but it also makes consumers more approving of the product (or in this case the cause), and mane likely to act on the information. Adolescents were generally found to be concerned about alcohol abuse and seemed to be generally supportive of health promotion initiatives. These finding have therefore been discussed in this dissertation keeping in mind those findings regarding the three advertising executions. It is believed that studies such as this are of importance to our communities. It is for example, anticipated that the results from such studies have the potential to assist health promotion planners to plan their health promotion strategies mane effectively in future. It should be added too, the implications of studies such as these are that health promotion planners will not only be assisted in the future in the area of adolescent binge-drinking but also in other areas of health such as in the areas of illicit drug use, smoking or diet and exercise strategies.

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