While online technologies play an important role in our lives, it is essential that digital environments are safe and facilitate health and wellbeing.
However, alcohol companies persistently target people with alcohol advertisements when they are online, with the goal of increasing their profits.
Alcohol advertisements, alcohol sales and delivery of alcohol are now inextricably linked, contributing to the significantly expanding availability of alcohol in Australia.
Key findings
- While advertising content and the sale of alcohol have traditionally been separate, alcohol companies now use online advertising as a store front, with advertisements directly linking to online retail sites and apps where alcohol is sold and rapidly delivered to people’s homes.
- Of the 56,000 advertisements published on Meta platforms by companies that sell alcohol over a 19-month period, the majority (83.8%) contained a button encouraging people to engage with the advertisement.
- Over a third of alcohol advertisements (39.2%) contained a button that directs people to an online platform where alcohol is sold. For example, advertisements directed people to online stores with a catalogue-style list of alcoholic products for sale, or directly to a product preview with an ‘add to cart’ prompt.
- These advertisements rapidly convert exposure to an alcohol advertisement online, with the sale and delivery of alcohol directly into the home, bypassing the usual protections and speed bumps in place when alcohol is sold in traditional physical premises. This is particularly concerning when it comes to an addictive and harmful product like alcohol.
- Current regulations for how alcohol is advertised and sold were developed for bricks and mortar stores and venues, with a number of jurisdictions now playing catch up and considering what changes are required to keep pace with an ever-evolving digital world.
- Reforms must ensure harm minimisation protections are not bypassed in the digital environment. Online alcohol advertising in its current form is expanding alcohol availability and expediting sales and delivery contributing to alcohol harms. Therefore, it is important that alcohol laws and regulations are modernised. Policymakers should consider implementing measures that address the ways alcohol companies advertise through digital platforms.
