Regular readers will know I'm a skeptic when it comes to the effectiveness of many government advertising campaigns. Speeding, gambling, knives or drinking, I don't believe that whatever the government does make a single bit of difference.
Sure, you can concoct a report and a spreadsheet that will make the case. But most people are easily conned by figures because they don't understand statistics and the lies they spin.
Now those guys with the big economics brains at Freakonomics have taken a look at whether people can be persuaded to drink less.
Apparently, the results from social media campaigns are mixed, warnings on bottles do more to make us feel guilty than anything else, and alcohol industry sponsored response drinking programs have even increased drinking.
It's a tough area to get a handle on which is probably why so much tax payer money is wasted on non-sensical ads that are designed to say that something is being done rather than changing behaviour.
As Freakonomics says: "If more persuasion to not drink isn’t too effective, what about less persuasion to drink? It seems self-evident that less alcohol advertising, sports sponsorships, etc. would lead to more sobriety, but here again the evidence is not overwhelming. The bulk of the literature...shows a surprisingly weak link between alcohol advertising and consumption, though some studies, particularly those that track subjects over time, have shown that less advertising does work, particularly for the young..."
As is always the case, studies into the effects of education programs and advertising are tricky to wade through but it's nice to see some conclusive evidence emerging on the true effects of these campaigns.
Oh, and just to contradict previous posts, I've just bought an iPad. More to come on this soon.