Consumer complaints against alcohol advertisements: an evaluation

Abstract

This paper investigates the complaints levelled at alcohol advertisements to determine the kinds of ads that attract complaints and to what extent Ready-to-Drink (RTD) advertising accounts for these. The research will have relevance to all countries where RTDs have developed market share. The results show that ads for beer, spirits and especially RTDs (when Share-of-Complaint versus Share-of-Market is considered) attract the greatest number of complaints. Wine ads played a negligible role. Over 96% of alcohol ads attracting complaints used either a humorous or a sexual advertising appeal, the results emphasising the risky nature of the humorous appeal. Rational, emotional, fear, and scarcity appeals made no impact on the findings.