Blog
| By Dr Ashlea Bartram
In recent years there has been an explosion in the availability – and advertising – of zero-alcohol drinks: drinks that mimic alcohol products in appearance and taste, but contain no or very low volumes of alcohol.
In Australia, these drinks are increasingly available for sale in places where alcohol is not permitted, such as supermarkets – typically alongside soft drinks like cola or lemonade. Other countries such as Ireland have seen prominent advertising campaigns for zero-alcohol versions of alcohol brands displayed in places where alcohol advertising has been restricted, such as on or near public transport. Last year’s Summer Olympics partnered with AB InBev to promote Corona Cero – the first time the Olympics has had a worldwide partnership with a beer brand.
Zero-alcohol drinks are often discussed in the media and by their manufacturers as part of a health-conscious trend, with a role to play in reducing harms from alcohol. And this might be true for adults who switch to drinking these drinks instead of alcohol. However, given their strong visual resemblance to full-strength alcohol products, there are also legitimate concerns that these products largely serve as surrogate marketing for alcohol. Especially since the bulk of zero-alcohol drinks come from parent alcohol brands – more than 4 in 5 of those sold in the UK in 2022, for example.
When it comes to adolescents, these concerns come to the fore. Alcohol consumption in adolescence is particularly harmful due to its neurodevelopmental impacts. Young people who start drinking alcohol at an early age are also more likely to drink alcohol in harmful ways in later life. For these reasons, many countries act to restrict adolescents’ exposure to alcohol products and advertising. But, in many places – like the supermarket aisle in Australia – zero-alcohol drinks are evading these restrictions, instead being treated like soft drinks.
So how do adolescents actually think about zero-alcohol drinks? Do these drinks make them think of alcohol? To investigate this, my colleagues and I conducted a reaction-time experiment with 331 Australian adolescents aged 15-17 years to examine whether they implicitly categorise images of zero-alcohol drinks as alcoholic beverages. We showed each participant 20 randomly-ordered images of alcohol, zero-alcohol, and soft drink products and asked them to indicate as quickly as possible whether these images made them think of alcohol. We included a mix of zero-alcohol drinks that featured parent alcohol brands as well as those that featured brands only seen on zero-alcohol drinks.
In short, we found that yes, zero-alcohol drinks absolutely do make adolescents think of alcohol. Most images of full-strength alcohol (94%), zero-alcohol drinks from parent brands (91%), and zero-alcohol drinks featuring unique brands (86%) prompted participants to think of alcohol, compared to just 5% of images of soft drinks. Participants were slightly quicker to categorise the drinks from parent alcohol brands as alcohol compared to the uniquely-branded drinks, suggesting that these were seen as more ‘typical’ of alcohol. But overall, it was clear that the vast majority of these products were prompting adolescents to think of alcohol.
These findings mean that exposure to zero-alcohol drinks within retail settings and through advertisements is likely having similar effects for adolescents as exposure to alcoholic drinks. So it doesn’t make a lot of sense to regulate zero-alcohol drinks like soft drinks. Rather, regulatory approaches that seek to limit adolescents’ exposure to alcohol – like restrictions on where alcohol can be sold and advertised – should also extend to zero-alcohol drinks.
Written by Dr Ashlea Bartram, National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction, Flinders University.
All IAS Blogposts are published with the permission of the author. The views expressed are solely the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Institute of Alcohol Studies.
