Using Social Marketing Messages on Social Media to Tackle Alcohol Abuse among Young People

Drinking is an important part of adolescent culture (ONS, 2016). Frequently, drinking and associated activities are shared with friends using social media (Leyshon, 2011). Social marketing campaigns through social media was an effective approach to tackling tobacco consumption among young people (Hastings et al. 2008), therefore, a similar approach can be used to prevent alcohol abuse. Perceived norms and peer influence are very important in alcohol consumption as can affect young people behaviour (Oostveen et al.,1996; Borsari & Carey, 2001). In addition, according to Fox et al. (1998), the context of a message can have a great impact on its effectiveness. It follows that the sharing, via social media, of photos associating social activities with heavy drinking may act to normalise, and even encourage, alcohol abuse. Therefore, we investigate the link between alcohol abuse and social media use by young people, and evaluate the likely effectiveness of online safe-drinking social marketing to help the development of effective online social marketing messages. The research objectives include to investigate: (1) the impact of a Facebook safe-drinking message on young adults alcohol consumption intentions; (2) the impact of Facebook photos showing people socialising while drinking alcohol on intention to consume alcohol in the future, and the mediating role of a safe-drinking message; (3) the moderating impact of relevant individual difference variables (4) the effectiveness of the safe-drinking message.