Ethical Exploration of Advertising Impacts: Comparison Between Alcohol-Free and Alcoholic Beer Communication of Users' Perceptions and Attitudes

Introduction

Over the years, the alcohol industry has played an increasingly important role in our social structure. Beer is undoubtedly the clear example of how a product with such remote origins and addictive characteristics has been able to continue to influence our culture today, being the second most consumed processed beverage in Spain, only behind soft drinks (FIAB, 2023). However, new trends point at a change in such consumption patterns. The growing amount of information about the negative effects of alcohol on our organism have led some people to decide to reduce and even eradicate its consumption (Hierro, 2020). In response to the emergence of these concerns, alcoholic beverage brands decided to develop new alcohol-free product lines.

To cite the most popular case, the beer industry was able to anticipate events by producing a line of non-alcoholic beers, making Spain the largest European producer of this product, where almost two out of every ten beers consumed in our territory are non-alcoholic (OCU, 2023). Likewise, the restrictions on sales and promotion that the public sector is gradually imposing on this industry, not allowing them to promote alcoholic drinks, forces them to limit their forms of communication almost exclusively to their non-alcoholic beverages (Sánchez, 2002). As a response, the beer industry has been able to adopt a fragmented type of marketing with the launch of different ranges of beverages, using a segmentation model similar to the one that wine has been developing for decades: adopting more sophisticated production processes and increasing in the perceived quality of its products among the public (Galán et al., 2014). Such strategy meets the demands of an increasing number of consumers who demand higher quality products, providing an escape route for brewers that ensures the survival of an industry that knows how to adapt to new consumer habits. In summary, after the emergence of new trends that at first sight could help a transition away from certain unhealthy drinking habits, it is striking to see how alcohol consumption figures continue to rise, particularly when it comes to beer. The consumption of beer peaked in recent years, while sales figures for the corresponding non-alcoholic versions show a less upward trend over time (Ministry of Agriculture, 2023).

The present work is aimed at clarifying the contrasting evidence between consumption trends and communication strategies of beer companies by answering the following questions: Are there differences in brand perception of advertising stimuli for alcohol-free and alcoholic beers? How do alcohol free beer advertising affect perceptions of brewers’ ethical behaviors? To address these questions, a study comparing the effects of viewing an alcohol-free vs. alcoholic beer were compared in order to determine their effects on consumer responses regarding the perceptions of potentially unethical practices performed by brewing companies, brand attitudes and intentions to purchase beer. In addition, in order to achieve a more complete understanding of the potential origin of the (non)differing effects of advertisement for the different products, an eye tracking experiment was developed to examine how individuals visually process alcoholic and non-alcoholic beer advertisements.

The present work is structured as follows: firstly, the theoretical review will be focused on analyzing those factors that intervene in alcohol consumption at different levels (i.e., societal, individual, etc.), placing special interest on communication strategies used by alcohol brands. As for the research methodology, an experimental design will be carried out by means of a survey accompanied by an eye-tracking experiment. The findings of this work show substantial similarities and some differences on the individuals’ responses after exposing them to alcoholic beer versus non-alcoholic beer advertisements. In light of the findings, we offer evidence that could be considered for developing future communication campaigns on the one hand and for further developing anti-alcoholic regulations on the other hand.