LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY
— “Drinking is often associated with being cool or being part of a group, so the peer pressure is very effective and potentially dangerous.” —
There are many reasons why people drink alcohol, but the main reasons seem to be socialisation, sensationseeking, avoidance and enjoyment. While recent statistics show relatively decreasing levels of alcohol consumption, alcohol-related harm costs England around £21 billion a year, with nine million people drinking above the recommended daily limits (Alcohol Concern).
Nina herself began researching the area of social media and brand promotion years ago, while she was at Birmingham University, with funding originally from Alcohol Research UK examining alcohol brands and clubs’ pages on Facebook. In 2012, when Nina moved to Loughborough University, she carried on with the research which prompted being invited to submit a book chapter on the marketing perspective of social media and drinking.
Dr Nina Michaelidou is a Reader in Marketing at the SBE and conducts research into social media and marketing. Most recently, her work has focused on the role that social media – notably Facebook – plays in propagating a drinking culture, especially within the young.
The book chapter (“Understanding Social Media as Commercial Platforms for Engaging with Young Adults” in Youth Drinking Cultures in a Digital World, Taylor and Francis 2017) is primarily a review of marketing and advertising tactics that alcohol brands are found to be using to engage with young adults, and include sales promotions, events, broadcast sponsorships, alcohol advertising and viral marketing.
“Surprisingly, there is not much within the marketing and business ethics literature to date on the effect of social media on drinking in the young,” says Nina, “and yet the ethical and moral issues surrounding this phenomenon are extensive and serious.”
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“I think the chapter gives people an idea of the amount of marketer-controlled content that is out there and how social media has now become a commercial platform,” explains Nina.
“It’s impacting people’s decision making about alcohol, especially the younger generation because they are more susceptible to promotions from clubs and brands. And there is a huge amount of content out there. One international alcohol producer we observed has 14 million ‘fans’ on Facebook alone. That’s not even looking at Twitter or Instagram.” The original research, published in the Journal of Marketing Management, looked at how alcohol brands, clubs and Facebook groups interacted with people on Facebook: “what tactics were used to engage with their audience,” she explains, “and how people engaged and responded.” In doing this research, she discovered that the brands capitalised on events like holidays or on good weather, engaging through posts and content with their fans to get them to talk about their experiences with the brand in connection with that occasion – having good fun on holidays with images of social drinking. “Of course people who use Facebook want to express themselves,” says Nina, “they want to network. That’s why they use Facebook, so they are encouraged to do that. The brand marketers trigger the conversation and sparks off a dialogue with the consumers. Some of the clubs we looked at were offering free taxi rides to the clubs, discounts for drinks, competitions resulting in prizes that included their product – this works especially well with students who are very susceptible to this sort of sales promotions because of the cost of alcohol.”