Alcohol brand websites: implications for social marketing

This paper presents the findings from exploratory research that explored young people's attitudes and responses to alcohol brand websites. In recent years alcohol marketing spend has increasingly shifted away from spending on advertising in traditional media to other channels such as Internet and social media (Gordon, 2011). Systematic reviews of the evidence suggest that alcohol marketing is associated with drinking behaviours (Anderson et al. 2009). Therefore, research on the nature and impact of marketing in such channels is warranted. The findings from this study can help inform upstream social marketing (advocacy, policy making) to regulate alcohol marketing (Hastings, 2007), and provide competitive analysis to inform alcohol social marketing interventions downstream (Gordon, 2011b).