Teens hardly notice warnings in alcohol ads, Y. study says

PROVO — The technology is so cool it could make owners of the new iPhone jealous.

The results are so controversial they drew a stiff rebuke from the alcohol industry.

Cutting-edge computer headgear — it looks like it came from the brain of "Star Wars" creator George Lucas — helped a researcher at stone-cold sober Brigham Young University study the way teenagers look at alcohol ads in magazines.

Literally.

BYU communications professor Steven Thomsen hooked up 63 middle-school students to headgear that tracked their eye movements as they looked at magazine ads, including six alcohol ads.

What he found disturbed Thomsen, who published the results Monday in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Teens spent about seven seconds running their eyeballs across the alcohol ads, but they paid virtually no attention — less than half a second on average — to the messages about responsible or underage drinking.

"If we are serious about 'responsibility messages,' we need to do a better job," Thomsen said. "The responsibility messages we're using now are just not effective."

The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (www.distilledspirits.org) reviewed Thomsen's study on Monday and issued a prepared statement criticizing it for misunderstanding the ads.

"The entire premise of the study is flawed," DISCUS spokeswoman Lisa Hawkins said. "The messages referred to in the study such as 'enjoy our products responsibly' are meant to encourage adults who drink to be responsible and are not intended for those under the legal drinking age. There is no such thing as responsible drinking if you are under 21. It's against the law."

DISCUS has had a responsible advertising code since 1934, Hawkins said. The code calls for alcohol ad placement "only in media where at least 70 percent of the audience is reasonably expected to be 21 years of age and older, the legal purchase age," according to the trade organization's Web site.

Thomsen acknowledged the ads weren't aimed at youths but said at least one of the ads he used in the study carried a message addressed directly to youths — "So, if you're underage, just don't drink."

That ad was for Crown Royal whisky. Thomsen said it was particularly ineffective with the teenagers in the study.