Tim Dower: Alcohol advertisements aren't the end of the world

Fresh concerns today about alcohol advertising near schools. 

Today's Medical Journal reports on a survey around more than 50 Auckland schools, which found each of them had at least one alcohol ad within 500 metres. 

And it's pointing out there was alcohol advertising close to 63% of low-decile schools. 

Instinctively, that doesn't sound so good but can we just back up the bus here for a second? 

One alcohol ad within 500 metres of a school... does that strike you as an end of the world is nigh situation? 

No, me neither. 

If it's the only ad for anything in that 500 metre radius and it's as big as a house, maybe that would register but would it send you steaming off to a bottle shop? 

Did advertising have anything to do with your early choices around drinking? No? Thought not. 

More likely the influences that steered you towards or even away from a particular product, or from alcohol altogether, were a lot closer to home. 

Wouldn't it have been your peers, your family, and the way they conducted themselves around alcohol? 

That's likely where most of us get our early impressions of the pros and cons of alcohol. 

Most likely where we saw it going a bit awry from time to time. 

Now obviously advertising works. We know it does. Radio advertising works particularly well, just quietly. 

And if advertising didn't work at all, businesses wouldn't do it. 

Advertising for tobacco is maybe a good example. Did you know it's been 60 years since we started banning ads for tobacco on radio and television? 

But did taking away the ads cause everyone to stop smoking overnight? No. It's taken a lot more work and a lot more regulation than that. 

I'm not saying advertising doesn't play a part in encouraging people to try different brands. 

But to jump from seeing a few ads to saying it causes young people to start drinking earlier and even binge drink, that's too much of a leap.  

And to be honest, when you make wild claims based on small amounts of data you probably do your cause more harm than good. 

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