Effectiveness of alcohol-prevention social marketing in the presence of alcohol advertising
ISSN: 2042-6763
Article publication date: 22 July 2019
Issue publication date: 20 August 2019
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of a national alcohol-prevention social marketing campaign in Thailand, investigating specifically the competing forces of the campaign vis-à-vis alcohol advertising.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on repeated cross-sectional, nationally representative data from the 2011-2014 Annual Survey of Buddhist Lent Campaign Evaluation (N = 10,133), a generalized ordered logit (partial proportional odds) model is used. The outcome of interest is self-reported alcohol consumption during the campaign period, compared to before. The main explanatory variables include exposure to the campaign and exposure to alcohol advertising.
Findings
Results show that exposure to the campaign and exposure to alcohol advertising positively and negatively influence alcohol consumption, respectively. Compared to those with one type of exposure and those without any exposure to alcohol-related messages, drinkers with exposure to both the campaign and alcohol advertising are estimated to have the highest probability of drinking reduction during the campaign period.
Originality/value
The paper highlights the importance of accounting for a countervailing force (in this case, alcohol advertising) in campaign evaluation studies. It also suggests that alcohol-control social marketing be continued and that the government should disseminate alcohol-prevention messages in a balanced manner, ensuring that both costs and benefits of alcohol consumption are well-understood by the intended audience.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the Center for Alcohol Studies, Thailand. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions.
Conflicts of interest: We wish to draw attention to the following facts, which may be considered as potential conflicts of interest. This work was funded by the Center for Alcohol Studies, which is a knowledge-based independent organization that receives the entirety of its annual budget from the Thai Health Promotion Foundation. The social marketing campaign evaluated in this work has since its inception been financed also by the Thai Health Promotion Foundation. Nevertheless, we confirm that the Thai Health Promotion Foundation was not involved in the research design nor the research process, and did not influence what we wrote on the submitted work.
Citation
Witvorapong, N., Ratisukpimol, W. and Watanapongvanich, S. (2019), "Effectiveness of alcohol-prevention social marketing in the presence of alcohol advertising", Journal of Social Marketing, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 309-328. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSOCM-01-2018-0003
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited