De Bruijn and Van den Broeck (2011) have developed a framework to evaluate the effectiveness of existing alcohol marketing regulations and have used this to analyse which European countries have the best and worst regulations.
Key points of the fact sheet are:
• Effective alcohol marketing regulations are an essential control measure in a comprehensive alcohol policy that aims to decrease alcohol-related harm and to protect young people.
• Effective alcohol marketing regulations are recommended to restrict the volume of alcohol marketing practices to protect harmful exposure to alcohol advertising among young people.
• When alcohol marketing practices are allowed, also content restrictions are recommended to allow alcohol advertisements that contain solely product information.
• Volume and content restrictions are only effective when a strong regulatory system supports the enforcement of the regulation.
• Alcohol marketing regulations in France and Norway can be seen as best practices in Europe: here strong volume or content restrictions go together with a strong supportive regulation system.
• Legislation is significantly more effective than self-regulation systems in ensuring the combination between strong restrictions and an effective supporting system.
