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The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between perceived susceptibility to alcohol retailers' sales promotion strategies and young, female university students' intention to buy alcohol and attitude towards alcohol consumption.

Data were collected from a convenience sample of three universities in three OECD countries with high alcohol consumption per capita: Australia (n=305), Germany (n=323) and Wales (n=361). A self‐administered survey approach was used to collect data from female university students between the ages of 18 and 24 years in one university in each country. The four alcohol sales promotion strategies of interest were price reductions, quantity specials whereby the more you buy the less you pay on a pro rata basis, bulk purchasing of alcohol, and purchasing from more than one store to take advantage of low prices.

The study found that except for retailer price reductions, the association between Welsh university students' intentions to buy alcohol and their susceptibility to the remaining retailers' sales promotions was greater than that of university students in Australia and Germany, respectively. Significant differences between the countries were found in terms of the salience of perceived susceptibility to retail sales promotion strategies and their correlation with students' attitude towards alcohol consumption.

The paper's findings provide insights particularly for upstream, legislative strategic interventions to combat the issue of alcohol drinking of young female university students.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze, within the consumer socialization theory framework, the influence of three socialization agents (parents, peers and advertising as part of media content) over alcohol consumption intentions among young people, differentiating between underage and overage individuals.

Structured interviews were performed in both high schools and a university to analyze the hypothesized model.

The results show that both positive and negative expectancies towards the perceived consequences of consuming alcohol are the main antecedents of consumption intention. Moreover, all three considered agents have either a direct and indirect effect on those expectancies; and advertising plays a more important role on underage audience intentions to consume alcohol.

The findings demonstrate that consumption intention among adolescents and young adults is affected by parents, peers and advertising. However, each social agent has a differential effect on young people.

This research highlights the importance of strict regulation (or even restriction) on alcoholic advertising to reduce the effect on youth.

The paper develops a comprehensive model to explain some (of the many) relationships underlying alcohol consumption among young people.

Heavy episodic drinking in young women has caused concern among many groups including public health professionals. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the experiences of young women’s alcohol consumption so as to facilitate better health education targeting.

This qualitative descriptive study examines the narratives of 16 young women’s experience of a “night out” framed as the Alcohol Consumption Journey.

The young women’s Alcohol Consumption Journey is a ritual perpetuated by the “experienced” and “anticipated” pleasure from social bonding and collective intoxication. The data showed three sequential phases; preloading, going out and recovery, which were repeated regularly. The young women perceived that going out was riskier than preloading or recovery and employed protective strategies to minimise risk and maximise pleasure. Alcohol was consumed collectively to enhance the experience of pleasure and facilitate enjoyment in the atmosphere of the night time economy. Implications for health interventions on collective alcohol consumption and perceived risk are presented.

The concept of socio-pleasure is valuable to explain the perpetuation of the young’s women ritualised Alcohol Consumption Journey. The binary concepts of mundane/celebration, individual/collective and insiders/outsiders are useful to illustrate the balancing of collective intoxication with group protective strategies in navigating the edge between risk and pleasure.

This paper aims to estimate the effects of three socialization agents in the form of advertising exposure, parental influence and peer influence and effects of personal attitude on youth alcohol consumption behaviour in South Africa.

A structural equation model was used to test the proposed conceptual model of four hypotheses based on the validated survey data gathered from 300 youth in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Empirical results show that advertising, parental influence, peer influence and personal attitude has positive effects on youth alcohol consumption behaviour, with advertising and personal attitude exhibiting statistical significance on alcohol consumption behaviour.

The study involves only youthful demographic in the age range of 18–35 and hence suffers from generalizability. The cross-sectional design also limits the findings with respect to time.

It provides policymakers insights into important factors to focus on changing drinking behaviour in South Africa.

It also improves the understanding of how consumer socialization agents and personal attitudes affect alcohol consumption of young people in South Africa and help deal with the problem through policy changes and social marketing interventions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to estimate three socialization agents and personal attitude of youth in alcohol consumption behaviour in an emerging market context.

The purpose of this study is to understand the effect of price promotions, venue and place of residence on low‐risk, risky and high‐risk alcohol consumption behaviour of young women between 18 and 24 years of age who attend university in Australia, Wales and Germany.

The quantitative, self‐administered questionnaire collected data from a convenience sample of three universities in three OECD countries with high alcohol consumption being: a regional Australian university (n=305), a city Welsh university (n=354) and a rural German university (n=325).

First, the multinomial logistic regression results revealed that price promotions and venue influenced alcohol consumption in Wales alone while place of residence influenced alcohol consumption in Australia; however, price promotions, venue and place of residence had no effect on young women attending university in Germany. Second, the binomial logistic regression results for Wales reported a sensitivity to price promotions for all three alcohol consumption risk classifications; however, location was of little consequence to risky drinkers when compared to high risk drinkers. For Australia, the place of residence did not influence alcohol consumption for both risky and high‐risk drinkers.

The value of this study lies in the examination of three levels of alcohol consumption – low‐risk, risky and high‐risk – for the same cohort across three countries using the same test instrument and standard alcohol consumption metrics. As such, this study provides a more meaningful macro view of alcohol consumption; thus has the capacity to contribute to effectual intervention strategies.

Introduction: Recent research studies focusing on the relationship between psychiatric illness and deviant behaviour (Huselid & Cooper, 1992; Holman, Jensen, Capell, and Woodard, 1993) suggest that a behaviour that is inconsistent with sex‐role expectations, particularly when it is defined as more appropriate for the opposite sex, is seen as deviant. By implication, women's alcohol misuse falls into this category of ‘deviant deviance’. In their research on gender roles as mediators of sex differences in adolescent alcohol use and abuse, Huselid and Cooper (1992), concluded that the relationships between gender roles and alcohol use were consistent with the hypothesis that individuals with conventional gender identities conform more closely to cultural norms that condone drinking among males but not among females. In addition to heavy and problem drinking of women judged frequently to be a deviation from the traditional feminine role, it is also viewed as a rejection of the traditional feminine sex‐role and adoption of an aspect of the traditional masculine role, or both (Chomak and Collins, 1987). In their research on sex‐role conflicts in alcoholic women, when the factors of age, socio‐economic status (SES), and marital status were controlled, Kroft and Pierre (1987) observed that alcoholic women scored as more depressed and more sex‐role undifferentiated than non‐alcoholic women. Alcoholic women were also found to have a relatively traditional sex‐role ideology, and remitted alcoholics expressed less satisfaction than other groups with some traditional female roles. The presence of conflict between perceived (real) and desired (ideal) gender‐role characteristics, rather than the specific pattern or direction of the conflict, may best predict problem drinking. Similarly, the research on gender‐role attitudes, job competition and alcohol consumption among women and men, conducted by Parker and Hartford (1992), concluded that among females, the non‐traditional role of employment in non‐traditional gender‐role attitudes concerning responsibilities for household labour and child‐care were associated with greater alcohol consumption. Among the employed, traditional females and non‐traditional males had greater alcohol use. The females and males who experience conflict between competition at the work‐place and substantial obligations at home consumed a greater amount of alcohol. The results of these clashes between feminine role pattern at home and traditionally masculine roles of paid employment will be social and psychological conflicts and tensions that could adversely affect women's mental health (McBroom, 1986). In other words, many women may find it stressful to switch between more masculine role expectations in the workplace and more feminine role expectations in the home (Gerson, 1985) and some may increase their alcohol consumption to alleviate distress resulting from mismatched gender‐related role expectations and preferences (Eccles, 1987).

This paper aims to investigate relationships between reported alcohol consumption and exposure to alcohol advertising.

A survey of young people (17‐21 years) was carried out in which they were questioned about their alcohol consumption habits, types of alcohol they consume, exposure to alcohol advertising, and a range of other factors linked to drinking (e.g. parental and peer groups alcohol‐related behavior and attitudes). General alcohol consumption was measured within three time‐frames: own lifetime, past year and past month.

The results showed no significant relationships between exposure to any type of alcohol advertising (cinema, magazine, TV) and general alcohol consumption. Exposure to televised advertising for alcopops and for cider in each case emerged as a significant predictor of consumption of each of those types of alcohol. While there was no evidence that alcohol advertising plays a significant role in shaping general alcohol consumption among young people, it does seem to play a part in driving consumption of certain types of alcoholic beverage.

Self‐completion questionnaires were used and the sample was based in central east England.

The results can inform current debates about the role of advertising in young people's drinking.

A wider range of alcohol‐related consumption and alcohol advertising exposure behaviors was examined in this study than in most other published surveys that have investigated relationships between these classes of variables.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it examines the communication strategies pursued by firms related to alcohol beverages in Spain during a decade with major changes in alcohol marketing regulations. Second, it analyzes the relationship between these strategies and underage alcohol consumption before and after 2007.

Panel data methodology is implemented using data from ESTUDES national survey (average sample size 26,000 interviews, 2004-2010) and INFOADEX (nationwide advertising expenditure, 1999-2013).

The results show that, under a restrictive alcohol marketing framework, firms related to alcohol beverages adapt their communication strategies: budget deviation from advertising to sponsorship. Regarding alcohol quantity and frequency models, the relationship between alcohol advertising expenditure and underage alcohol consumption after 2007 is very small but still positive and significant. However, contrary to expectations, in the case of alcohol sponsorship, the relationship between expenditure and underage alcohol consumption has not been affected by the observed budget deviation from advertising to sponsorship after 2007.

Changes in alcohol advertising and sponsorship regulation lead firms related to alcohol beverages to change their communication strategies to overcome new regulatory restrictions and to reach their target group. Overall, despite the relationships between both advertising and sponsorship expenditure and underage alcohol consumption diminish between periods, they still remain positive and significant. Closer and updated monitoring of alcohol communication strategies pursued by firm is needed to keep controlling the alcohol advertising and sponsorship exposure to under age people.

This is a pioneer study in analyzing communication strategies within the Spanish alcohol beverages sector and in proposing a model to analyze the dynamic effect of such strategies on underage alcohol consumption.

Underpinning this research is an acknowledgement of the increasing attention paid to the social issues raised by young peoples' alcohol consumption. Although earlier research has identified a number of factors contributing to alcohol‐related problems in Poland, only a handful of studies attempted to better understand drinking patterns and their influence on alcohol consumption amongst Polish people. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the roles alcohol plays in the life of young people in Poland.

All the data are collected on a university campus in Poland in late autumn 2007 from a group of ten university students. The research is conducted in three phases, using two research methods: focus groups and diaries. Purposive sample is used to establish two focus groups (Phases 1 and 3) each of which meet on two occasions, three weeks apart. In the first two week period between each focus group, respondents are asked to keep private diary (Phase 2) recording every occurrence that is, in their opinion, related to alcohol consumption.

The findings are themed around three major factors: quantity of consumed alcohol, frequency of consumption and location of consumption. However, the strongest issue is the pressure experienced by students around the social consumption of alcohol.

At a time when young peoples' alcohol consumption is attracting increasing attention from legislators and regulators, a better understanding of young consumers' behaviour may help government and other non‐profit organisations create well‐informed regulations, policies or educational programmes.

Although there is significant amount of research into detrimental effects of excessive alcohol consumption on physical and psychological health of people in Poland, little research goes into wider social issues or beyond the most visible biological consequences of drinking as anti‐social behaviour.

The excessive consumption of alcohol in numerous countries in the world, combined with the progressively younger age of the consumers, made it necessary for companies to use instruments of communication aimed at the development of consumption responsibility, so as to prevent reckless behaviour and the health risks thereto associated. The purpose of this paper is to assess the visibility and effectiveness of responsible consumption messages used for the sale of the product “beer” (on packaging and in advertisements); the study used a sample audience made up of teenagers and young adults from southern Italy.

The methodology used was that of the focus group. Three interview sessions were conducted, one dedicated to teenagers, age 16–17 years, and two dedicated to young adult panels, age 20–24 years. A ten-question questionnaire was designed prior to the conduction of the focus groups, and it was used in all the sessions.

The study shows the weak efficacy of the “drink responsibly” communication campaigns carried out by beer manufacturers. The totality of the interviewees failed to remember the existence of the “drink responsibly” messages and, even after supplementary visual stimulation, they were mostly disinterested, defining the fact that companies from the alcoholic drinks industry carry out consumption awareness campaigns as an out-and-out nonsensical contradiction.

The survey draws attention to the perception by young audiences of the more recent “drink responsibly” communication campaigns carried out by beer manufacturers, aiming at encouraging a more responsible attitude to alcohol consumption. There still are not many such inquests aimed at determining the response of young people to the use of slogans and commercials connected to responsible drinking in the literature; therefore, this study aimed at filling this gap. In fact, the authors believe this study is important for assessing the effectiveness of such instruments for achieving greater responsibility in the use of alcoholic drinks, so as to develop better awareness in the ranks of youths. Among the new communication strategies that were proposed to the participants, there were video commercials containing responsible consumption messages and the new prohibition marks placed directly on the product labels.