Study: Alcohol, Beer Ads On Internet Target Kids Promotions Use Cartoons, Graphics, Music; Group Wants Regulations

While regulators scratch their heads over what to do about cyberporn, the alcohol and tobacco industries are attracting youths with entertaining ads on the Internet, according to a study released Thursday.

Youth advocates said at a Thursday press conference that vivid graphics, games and interactive sites help tobacco and alcohol companies sell and promote their products to the underaged.

“Alcohol marketers are stalking our children,” said George A. Hacker, director of alcohol policies project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

“They hunt and ambush kids on TV, on radio, on billboards they pass to and from school. Now they’ve begun snaring youths on Web sites, too.”

This new medium of online advertising has become a powerful presence in the lives of children and youth under 21, according to officials from the Center for Media Education (CME).

To address the problem, CME called for a combination of congressional hearings, new federal investigations, enforcement of federal laws and action by parents and educators.

With a little bit of computer know-how children can tap into more than 300 web sites like the Budweiser on-line radio network, “KBUD.” The site, hosted by a DJ called BuddyK, intersperses music, album reviews and interviews with rock stars with a steady stream of promotions for the beer.

A number of beer and liquor Web sites have interactive games featuring brand characters, including Molson Beer’s “Berserk in Banff” and Cuervo Tequila’s “J.C. Roadhog Adventure,” featuring a character who zooms across a desert littered with empty tequila bottles.

While tobacco companies have been banned from cigarette soliciting on television, CME officials believe that online marketing campaigns have become a serious loophole in the FDA’s attempt to protect children from such promotion.

Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., for instance, recently began running Lucky Strike print ads to attract visitors to an on-line Web magazine that collects information and offers free T-shirts.