Authors: Sally Casswell & Jia Fang Zhang
Title: Impact of liking for advertising and brand allegiance on drinking and alcohol-related aggression: a longitudinal study
Journal: Addiction, 1998, 93 (8), 1209-1217. 

AbstractOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Objective: To examine the impact of adolescent’s degree of liking alcohol advertisements and their brand allegiance (“having a favourite alcohol brand”) at age 18 on the beer consumption at age 21. 
Design: Longitudinal study
Setting: Respondents of a birth cohort have been assessed every few ears in Dunedin, New Zealand
Participants: respondents who drank beer were selected at age 18 and during the follow-up at age 21 (N=630). 
Methods: Structural equation modelling is used to examine whether there are reciprocal paths of influence to test the hypothesized causal model (SEM does not establish causality). The effect of the liking of advertisements and brand allegiance on beer consumption at age 21 was controlled for gender and beer consumption at age 18.
Findings: The results show that, controlling for beer consumption at age 18 and gender, a higher attractiveness of the advertisements increases the volume of beer consumption at age 21 (B standardized = .36, SE=.006 with p<.05). Brand allegiance increases the consumption of beer at age 21 as well (B standardized = .26, SE=.02 with p<.05). Attractiveness of advertisements and brand allegiance affect the beer consumption even stronger than beer consumption at 18 (B standardized = .14, SE=.03 with p<.05). There is no support for a reciprocal effect of consumption on liking of advertisements and on brand allegiance. The amount of variance explained by the model was considerable (Rsq=.57).
Conclusion Authors: The results show a substantive effect of alcohol advertisement on alcohol consumption of this key subgroup. Although the average alcohol consumption is declining in New Zealand, the results suggest a short term effect of this consumption which should be of relevance for public policy. 

Comments EUCAM:
It is interesting that the authors do not only include liking of the ad but also brand allegiance which is not examined very often. It would be of interest for further research to include the amount of exposure to alcohol ads as well in the model of Casswell and Zhang to examine how this relates to brand allegiance, liking of ads and alcohol consumption at a later age. 

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