Growing up with advertising

Quotations 

"....there is little evidence that exposure to alcohol portrayals on television influences young people" (Gruber, 1993, p65). 

"The relationship between advertising and adolescent substance use is complex...Advertising probably plays a role in smoking onset in youth, but it is one of many social, psychological, economic and cultural factors, contributing to the continued higher rate of smoking among youth" (Unger et al, 1995, p465). 

"Advertising appears to have a very weak positive influence on consumption and no impact on experimentation, with alcohol or abuse of it.  Moreover, there is no evidence that changes in regulations regarding permissible advertising that either increase or decrease it affect consumption patterns.  Alcoholics and heavy drinkers appear to be the most readily affected, but in the opposite direction of the appeal, alcoholics counterargue commercials and find them less appealing than normal drinkers: while heavy drinkers increase consumption in the presence of warning labels" (Fisher, 1993, p150). 

"Even totally eliminating advertising and alcohol in the media will not, in and of itself, eliminate drinking among youth or the problems associated with it" (Gruber, 1993, p66). 

"For long-term benefits, then, it seems more valuable to concentrate on helping children develop skills for making decisions than to teach them which specific decisions to make" (Austin & Johnson, 1997, p40). 

"Furthermore, we strongly believe that children's socialisation process not only starts earlier, but also develops quicker than before.  To ban ads for children under the age of 8 is thus more likely to result in children's socialisation process being inhibited until the age of 8, as small children will not have the same opportunity of developing a critical attitude to advertising" (Martensen & Hansen, 2001, p28).