Exposure to alcohol adverts or other audio-visual content (AVC) in the media leads to alcohol initiation and subsequent use by adolescents [1] and continued use by adults, especially those at risk of an alcohol use disorder or those in recovery [2]. This is due to normalising alcohol use in society through social norms.
All I want for Christmas is booze?
The Christmas period is characterised by excess, and by an increase in alcohol consumption [3]. Studies have suggested that there is an increase in alcohol advertising on TV at this time of year [4]. Alcohol advertising at Christmas time presents an idealised Christmas, where alcohol plays a key part, telling us that you can’t have a perfect Christmas unless alcohol is front and centre in your celebrations [5]. However, there has been a lack of contemporary data on how much advertising is shown, so last year we decided to explore this.
To explore the amount of alcohol advertising in the run-up to Christmas, we gathered our laptops, threw on our Christmas jumpers and settled down to record how many adverts were shown over a five-day period (December 1st – December 5th 2022), across the three main free-to-view commercial channels (ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5) between the peak family viewing hours of 6pm – 10pm.
Over the five-day period a total of 2,063 adverts were shown. Of these, 86 were for alcohol products, with the most prominent being Guinness with 14 adverts shown.
Whilst direct alcohol adverts were relatively rare, there was a concern that the amount of alcohol shown in advertising during this time normalises the use of alcohol during the holiday period [6]. Whilst watching these adverts, we noticed that there seemed to be a lot of alcohol content shown in supermarket adverts. We decided to explore further with a content analysis of the Christmas adverts from Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons, Asda, Aldi, Lidl, and Marks & Spencer’s (food). We split each advert into 10-second intervals and recorded any alcohol content which was shown.
Of 54 10-second intervals across all the adverts, 15 contained alcohol content (28% of intervals) with one advert from Tesco showing alcohol content 13 times in a 90-second advert. Adverts from the six supermarkets which contained alcohol (Morrison’s did not) were seen 73 times over the period of the study (4% of adverts shown), with one of these being seen 31 times.
The widespread use of alcohol brand adverts and adverts which contain alcohol content likely made the run-up to Christmas 2022 difficult for many people in the UK, particularly those with, or at risk of an alcohol use disorder, or those in recovery [6].
That was ‘Last Christmas’, what about this year?
Our study was published in May [6], and we contacted the supermarkets involved to inform them of the results and to consider showing less alcohol content for adverts in 2023.
The 2023 adverts are now out, and we have been able to compare alcohol content in supermarket adverts between 2022 and 2023 by repeating the same method. In total, 64 10-second intervals were seen from the supermarkets this year, with only 17% containing alcohol references (See table 1), with most of these being verbal or implied references without alcohol being shown on screen, such as Michael Bublé exclaiming that ‘brown sugar and spiced dark rum are this year’s food flavour trend’ in Asda’s Christmas advert or a Christmas pudding being set alight in the Marks and Spencer’s advert.
Table 1 – Number and percentage of 10 second intervals per advert per year to contain alcohol content
| 2022 | 2023 | |
| Tesco | 4 (67%) | 3 (20%) |
| Asda | 2 (22%) | 1 (11%) |
| Morrisons | 0 (0%) | 3 (50%) |
| Sainsbury’s | 3 (33%) | 0 (0%) |
| Aldi | 2 (22%) | 3 (33%) |
| Lidl | 1 (17%) | 0 (0%) |
| Marks and Spencer (Food) | 3 (33%) | 1 (12%) |
| Total | 15 (28%) | 11 (17%) |
Not only has imagery decreased but we see potentially changing attitudes in the depiction of Christmas and the normalisation of alcohol at Christmas time, with not all supermarkets opting to show alcohol with Christmas dinner, as can be seen in the comparison between Tesco’s advert featuring bottles and glasses of sparkling wine, and Lidl with no bottles in sight.
This was also shown in the data whereby not only did the number of intervals containing content decrease but the amount of content being shown in total also fell (See table 2)
Table 2 – Number of total occurrences of type of alcohol content
| 2022 | 2023 | |
| Actual use | 0 | 0 |
| Inferred use | 6 | 6 |
| Other content | 20 | 8 |
Some supermarkets replied to us.
Marks and Spencer informed us that alcohol products will only be featuring very sparingly, fleetingly, and incidentally in their adverts. Morrisons said that they were unaware of the research and that this did not affect the planning of their advert and that they are planning more alcohol-focussed adverts closer to Christmas. Tesco said that they follow all relevant guidelines.
The relevant guidelines referred to are those from the Advertising Standards Authority, which state that showing alcohol in itself is not a problem, but showing or implying drinking to excess, exaggerating the importance of alcohol at Christmas time, or advertising to children is [7]. All advertisements must stick to the rules of the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising, which is guided by the principle that ‘advertisements should not mislead or cause serious or widespread offence or harm, especially to children or the vulnerable’. As we know that these advertisements are likely to affect the most vulnerable in our society, including children and those at risk of or in recovery from an alcohol use disorder [1, 2], it could be argued that alcohol content in these advertisements is causing harm by normalising alcohol use at Christmas, especially by linking alcohol use with Christmas traditions, such as Christmas dinner.
A reduction in the amount of content suggests that some supermarkets could be considering the wider impact of alcohol content in their adverts. We know that these adverts are shown multiple times throughout the Christmas period, potentially normalising the behaviours seen in these adverts as people strive to achieve the ‘perfect Christmas’ often depicted in these adverts [8]. Alcohol content in adverts leads to alcohol initiation and subsequent consumption by adolescents [1] and continued consumption by adults, especially those at risk of or in recovery from an alcohol use disorder [2]. The reduction in content this year could lead to less alcohol being consumed, fewer people taking up the habit, and years of life gained for those who may have otherwise struggled with this time of year.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Written by Dr Alex Barker, University of Derby, Rebecca Thorley, University of Nottingham, and Dr Rachael Murray, University of Nottingham.
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.
- Anderson, P., et al., Impact of alcohol advertising and media exposure on adolescent alcohol use: a systematic review of longitudinal studies. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 2009. 44(3): p. 229-243.
- Alcohol Focus Scotland, Realising our rights: How to protect people from alcohol marketing. 2022, Alcohol Focus Scotland: Glasgow.
- Makela, P., P. Martikainen, and E. Nihtila, Temporal variation in deaths related to alcohol intoxication and drinking International Journal of Epidemiology, 2005. 34(4): p. 765-771.
- Barker, A.B., et al., Tobacco and alcohol content in soap operas broadcast on UK television: a content analysis and population exposure Journal of Public Health, 2021. 43(3): p. 595–603.
- Institute of Alcohol Studies, The two faces of Christmas. 2022.
- Barker, A.B., R. Thorley, and R.L. Murray, Have yourself a ‘merry’ little Christmas: Alcohol adverts and alcohol content within adverts in the run-up to Christmas. Public Health in Practice, 2023. 6: p. 100390.
- Advertising Standards Authority. Making sure your festive alcohol ads mistletoe the line. 2017 13/11/2023]; Available from: https://www.asa.org.uk/news/making-sure-your-festive-alcohol-ads-mistletoe-the-line.html.
- Bandura, A., Social Learning Theory. 1977, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.