Analysis: alcohol advertising in Ireland is set to feature multiple health warnings, but we still don't know enough about how they work best
By Vania Filipova, Daire Hooper and Patrick Kenny, TU Dublin
We love to have a good drink, but let's face it, we often forget that our drinking habits can have some serious consequences for our health. Unfortunately, not enough people realise that drinking alcohol can put you at risk of developing deadly cancers, liver cirrhosis, heart diseases, and mental health problems. This has sparked debates in the political and scientific communities about raising awareness through health warnings on alcohol products and advertising.
The most common warnings on product labels relate to pregnant women, minors, and drivers, but they don’t adequately inform us about the serious risks associated with alcohol consumption, including less-known conditions such as cancer. Similarly, industry-sponsored responsibility messages, such as "drinkaware" on alcohol ads, side-step the issue of well-being and are unlikely to undermine the commercial objectives of alcohol ads or product packaging.
Recent advances in alcohol policy can be credited to the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018, requiring all alcohol product labels to include health information about the dangers of alcohol consumption, pregnancy risks, and fatal cancers. The Act also requires the inclusion of information on a government health services website where we can access more detailed drink awareness advice and support. Despite opposition from the alcohol industry, Ireland’s alcohol labelling regulations have been viewed as a guiding principle and have been widely endorsed by public health advocates worldwide.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Today with Claire Byrne, Professor Frank Murray discusses link between alcohol and the risk of disease
But there is more to this innovative law that meets the eye. The Irish regulations on health warnings extend to alcohol advertising (under Section 13 of the Act), a major step beyond existing general warnings in alcohol ads legislated in other European countries. For the first time ever, ads will feature multiple warnings marking an important milestone for public health.
Scientists have been studying how to design health warnings on tobacco and alcohol products and the mechanisms through which they work. They have looked at format features such as positioning, size and colour palette, but we still don’t know much about the efficacy of health warnings in alcohol ads. So here is the question: does it really help to have several warnings about health when advertising alcohol? Alcohol ads can portray far more promotional elements with positive drinking imagery than what’s just on the bottle or can.
In an experimental study, 932 participants were asked to look at a print ad for an unfamiliar beer brand with health warnings on it, taking up about 20% of the space. Some of the participants saw an ad with just one warning about fatal cancers, while others saw an ad with several warnings depicting four messages about pregnancy, cancer, mental health, and a URL with health information about alcohol. The study found that people were better able to remember the warning about fatal cancers when it was the only one on the ad, compared to when there were multiple warnings.
This tells us that several warnings in an ad may be less impactful, and in practice, ads also are likely to occupy less space than the study assumed, lowering the likelihood of their effectiveness even further. It should also be considered that alcohol ads often feature people enjoying themselves while drinking —as a contextual factor promoting alcohol consumption—with health warnings providing negative information about alcohol, making it challenging for viewers to process the information. But it is not entirely clear if having multiple warnings is not helpful overall or if it's because of how they’re designed, such as the kind of health messages used, if they are familiar or not us, how big they are, where they are placed, and what colours are used.
From a scientific perspective, there is now strong evidence indicating that health warnings and emotions are connected. Negative emotions such as fear can strongly encourage people to consider the harms of smoking or drinking. This understanding is important because one impactful and emotional cancer warning in alcohol ads was found to generate more negative emotions than multiple warnings.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's The Ray D'Arcy Show, Professor Janice Walshe on the links between alcohol and cancer
But again, it’s important to remember that the effectiveness of health warnings depends on how well they’re recalled. If people don't remember the warnings, they won't be able to react to them. Despite being more impactful, cancer warnings tend to be less believable, indicating a lack of knowledge about alcohol consumption and fatal cancers. This highlights the pressing need to introduce cancer warnings and increase public knowledge, with policymakers concentrating their efforts on implementing them.
The effectiveness of health warnings needs further research as there is still much to be learned about their design features to achieve maximum impact. However, advertising is an essential aspect to consider when studying the impact of health warnings, just like product labels. Effective health warnings on alcohol products and advertising, particularly regarding the risks of fatal cancers associated with alcohol consumption, are essential, and the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018 provides a framework for achieving this.
Dr Vania Filipova is Assistant Lecturer in Marketing at the School of Marketing and Entrepreneurship in TU Dublin. She is a member of the Alcohol Labelling Health Warnings International Eurocare Group [ALHWIEG]. Dr Daire Hooper is Lecturer in Research Methods in TU Dublin. Dr Pat Kenny is Senior Lecturer in TU Dublin.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
