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An examination of how alcohol brands use sport to engage consumers on social media

KATE WESTBERG1, CONSTANTINO STAVROS1, AARON C.T. SMITH2, GEOFF MUNRO3 & KEVIN ARGUS2

1School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, 2Graduate School of Business and Law, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, and 3National Policy Manager, Alcohol and Drug Foundation, Melbourne, Australia

Abstract Introduction and Aims. To examine how alcohol brands use sport in their communication activities on social media. Despite extensive research exploring alcohol advertising and sponsorship through sport, minimal attention has been given to digital plat- forms. Design and Methods. This study undertakes a qualitative content analysis to examine the social media activity of alcohol brands sponsoring the three largest spectator sports in Australia: Australian rules football, rugby league and cricket. Results. Four sport-related social media strategies are identified through which alcohol brands solicit interaction with consumers, often involving co-creation of content and social activation. These strategies act as ‘calls to action’ and through the association of sport and alcohol encourage consumers to engage in competition, collaboration, celebration and consumption. These strategies are further strengthened by communications which draw upon themes of identity and camaraderie to resonate with the consumer. Discussion and Conclusions. Sport-linked social media strategies utilised by alcohol brands extend beyond just promoting their product. They seek higher levels of engagement with the consumer to amplify and augment the connection between alcohol and the sport spectator experience. The discussion highlights the powerful combination of sport and social media as a mechanism by which these brands seek to interact with consumers and encourage them to both create and promote content to their social networks. These strategies allow alcohol brands to extend their marketing efforts in a manner which can elude alcohol codes and prove difficult for regulators to identify and control. [Westberg K, Stavros C, Smith ACT, Munro G, Argus K. An examination of how alcohol brands use sport to engage consumers on social media. Drug Alcohol Rev 2016;00:000-000]

Key words: alcohol, marketing, social media, sport.

Introduction

Sport is embedded in the sociocultural fabric of many countries and has the ability to create and sustain highly identified and invested consumers across a broad range of demographic groups. As a consequence, sport presents an enticing marketing platform for brands, especially when combined with the immersive and collaborative nature of social media. Alcohol promotion and consump- tion are entrenched in sporting events internationally, fuelled by both commercial considerations and social practices. In Australia, alcohol sponsorship is featured in most major professional sports including the national cricket team, Australian football, rugby, golf and tennis championships, horse racing and motor racing. A survey of the websites of national and state sporting organisa- tions revealed that 20 sports featured 79 alcohol spon- sors [1]. This partnership has significant implications

for public health, and it has been noted that the ‘symbi- otic relationship between alcohol and sport in Australia is a key contributor to alcohol related harm’ [2].

The Australian sporting landscape can be considered highly developed with a diverse range of elite sporting op- tions at both national and state levels. Some of the teams in the Australian Football League (AFL) have a history dating back to the mid-19th century, making them some of the oldest in the world. The major competitions in many other sports are similarly well established, with the elite levels of Australian football, state cricket and rugby league, each going back over a century. The grand finals (ultimate playoff matches) of both the AFL and the National Rugby League (NRL) are typically the two most watched television programs each year. Sport is an im- portant feature of the Australian lifestyle and in addition to being socially significant and highly commercial, it has also elevated itself to ‘… an index of wellbeing and

Kate Westberg PhD, Associate Professor, Constantino Stavros PhD, Associate Professor, Aaron C.T. Smith PhD, Professor, Geoff Munro, National Policy Manager, Kevin Argus PhD. Correspondence to Associate Professor Kate Westberg, School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University, 124 La Trobe Street, Melbourne, Vic 3000, Australia. Tel: +613 9925 5512; E-mail: [email protected]

Received 4 November 2015; accepted for publication 15 August 2016.

Drug and Alcohol Review (2016) DOI: 10.1111/dar.12493

2018;37:28–35]

Drug and Alcohol Review (January 2018), 37, 28–35 DOI: 10.1111/dar.12493

pride, which is of increasing significance in public policy’ [3]. Despite some efforts to limit alcohol’s connection to sport in Australia, the fervour for attendance at major leagues and cultural embedment of sport in general makes sponsorship an attractive vehicle for a range of brands. It was this thinking that led the Australian Na- tional Preventative Health Agency (ANPHA), through their Community Sponsorship Fund, to sponsor 16 national sporting organisations to work with the agency to promote anti-binge drinking messages and signage in the sport environment as well as engaging athletes as ambassadors for the campaign. Although the ANPHA sponsored a large number of sport organisations, these did not include any of the major spectator sports such as the AFL, NRL or Australian cricket. Further, this ini- tiative was short lived after the ANPHA was disbanded after a change in government.

Past research has explored the impact of alcohol adver- tising and sponsorship associated with sport. In the Australian context, research has established that there is significant exposure of alcohol communications to chil- dren and young people as a result of alcohol advertising and sponsorship related to sporting matches [4–7]. Expo- sure to, and involvement with, alcohol marketing has been associated with increased consumption [8]. Fur- ther, exposure to alcohol sponsorship has been found to generate a positive attitude toward the brand and to some extent toward alcohol more generally [9]. While previous research has explored the public health implications asso- ciated with alcohol advertising and sponsorship in sport [10], less is known about how alcohol brands interact with consumers through various forms of social and dig- ital media, and how these efforts might shape attitudes and consumption [5,11].

Social media provide networked platforms for con- sumers to increasingly live their lives in public view [12]. Users create an online profile to communicate and interact with people of similar interests [13], and these re- lationships are integral to their identities [14,15]. Social connections are reflected not just in shared content (e.g. comments, thoughts, ideas and photographs) but also in commercially driven linkages, as brands are able to en- gage with consumers and encourage them to participate in the marketing process. This engagement is often subtle or routinised as brands seek to integrate their social me- dia presence into consumer lifestyles [11,16].

Social media platforms are attractive for alcohol brands because of the potential for accessing extensive data on consumers that can be used for highly targeted marketing [11]. Social media more generally facilitates the speed and efficiency in which messages can be disseminated, by both brands and users, and become entrenched as norms within peer groups. Of further concern is the ex- tent to which this platform allows alcohol marketers to elude regulation and control [6,16]. Research exploring

social media as a marketing and communications tool for the alcohol industry is evolving. Studies have found that Facebook, which has almost 1.4 billion monthly active users, is used by alcohol brands to engage with consumers through both brand and user generated content, and that this content is easily accessed by those under the legal drinking age [17,18]. Further, alcohol brands on Facebook and Twitter use real world tie-ins, interactive games, competitions and timely consumption suggestions, allowing for brand-related conversations and real-time interaction [16].

Emerging research is beginning to shed light on the re- lationship between the social media strategies of alcohol brands and consumption. For example, it has been found that young adults’ intention to consume alcohol is higher when their attitude toward alcohol’s social media com- munications, and their intention to ‘like’ or ‘share’ those messages, is more positive [19]. In addition, research has identified a strong association between active engage- ment with alcohol brands on Facebook by young adults and problematic alcohol consumption [20].

While marketing through social media platforms is not new for alcohol brands, the use of sport as a conduit for interaction with consumers raises a series of worrying im- plications that go beyond the concerns previously voiced about traditional alcohol advertising and sponsorship in sport. The powerful combination of sport’s intense emo- tional engagement and the exponential potential of social media networking enable brands to connect with users by leveraging shared allegiance and belonging, with alcohol embedded contiguous to sport [21]. Conventional adver- tising cannot rival sport-linked social media for converg- ing consumers’ passions with an alcohol brand’s symbolic associations [22]. Exploratory research suggests that alcohol brands are leveraging their sport sponsorship through communications on social media and have been successful in engaging consumers [6]. However, further research is needed to more fully understand how alcohol brands use their association with sport in their social me- dia activity, including the examination of alcohol brand strategies, the nature of brand authored content and methods of soliciting user generated content [11,23,24]. Further, it has been suggested that a key area for research is to explore the role of social media in embedding alcohol conversations and consumption into ‘everyday life’ [17].

This research addresses these gaps by exploring how alcohol brands in Australia use sport-linked communica- tion to interact with consumers on social media. Australia has both a diverse sporting environment and a relatively high per capita consumption of alcohol [25]. We examined a range of social media platforms used by alco- hol brands, the type of communication and promotional tactics employed and the content of messages and images generated by brands and individual users. Our focus was

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How alcohol brands use sport 29

to understand how alcohol brands were using the inter- section of sport and social media, and consumers’ identi- fication with sport, to further their marketing goals.

Method

This paper makes use of analysis from a study we under- took for a report that was supported by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education [26]. We sought to establish whether alcohol sponsors utilised sport-linked communications on social media platforms and if so, to identify the approaches undertaken. Social media plat- forms facilitate a natural source of data in an accessible and contextual form [27]. We explored sport-linked alco- hol communication associated with a sponsoring brand on two highly popular social media platforms: Facebook and Twitter. In doing so, we considered ‘sport-linked al- cohol communication’ to be any textual material created by the alcohol brand that made reference to a specific sport or sporting organisation in its message content, or any image that presented an alcohol-related product or brand in a sport context. The population for this study was major alcohol brands

sponsoring the AFL, the NRL (including the popular ‘State-of-Origin’ matches between the states of New South Wales and Queensland) and Australian cricket (both Test matches and One-Day Internationals) during the latter part of 2013 and throughout most of 2014. These competitions were noteworthy for their atten- dances, high television viewership and sociocultural sig- nificance in Australian society. The research period encompassed the beginning of

the 2013–2014 cricket season (October 2013) through to the end of the AFL and NRL finals series (October 2014). This timeframe allowed data to be captured during the months in which each sport is active and to pay particular attention to the marketing and promo- tional activity that occurred during key events. Data were captured by accessing the various social media sites of both alcohol brands and sporting associations, using standard screen capture technology, which was then archived. We identified alcohol sponsors by referring to the offi-

cial websites of Cricket Australia and the teams and governing bodies associated with the AFL and NRL. We conducted a conventional qualitative content analy- sis, purposefully adopting an inductive approach to elicit themes from the online text and images that had been captured [28]. That is, initial codes were derived from the data as opposed to being guided by preconceived frameworks or categories. The first stage of the analysis involved finalising the specific media, brands and sports to be considered. Next, messages and images published by sponsor brands via social media were captured for

each sport. Adapting elements of a netnographic ap- proach, data analysis considered text and images as well as the processes through which members of online com- munities communicate (i.e. by ‘liking’ a post) [29]. The posts examined contained both text and images. Data were initially checked and sorted by three researchers to ensure that it adhered to our definition of sport-linked al- cohol communication. Only the content that pertained to sport was retained. These communications were then coded using an iterative process through open coding and then identifying categories and associated themes. The data were further explored using axial coding to identify the underlying strategies that the themes were embedded in. To ensure reliability, independent coders were used, and a pilot was undertaken before proceeding through the full data set. Consistent with previous re- search related to social media [28], the unit of analysis comprised the content of the social network sites, and the coding units were individual posts, including images.

Results

In total eight wine brands, six beer brands and three spirit brands were identified as sponsors across the relevant sports. Of these, we determined that eight alcohol spon- sors (four beer brands, three spirit brands and one wine brand) used specific sport-linked communication in their social media activity. We found that, as expected, the so- cial media platforms most commonly used by these brands were Facebook (with approximately 1.5 million fans) and Twitter (approximately 7500 followers). A total of 1086 brand-authored Facebook and Twitter ‘posts’ were collected and categorised over the research period. Of these, 236 brand-authored messages were identified as sport-linked communication: 128 Facebook posts and 108 tweets. The 128 Facebook brand-authored mes- sages generated 46616 likes, 4300 comments and 6052 shares reflecting high levels of interest. The 108 brand- authored messages on Twitter reflected engagement with 1202 ‘favourites’ and were associated with 1045 retweets.

Of the 236 brand-authored messages considered, 31% (72 posts) were categorised as simply general branding communication with no apparent intent to activate the consumer. The remaining 69% of the sport-linked com- munication messages (n=164) sought to more actively engage the consumer. In particular, the content analysis of these specific messages revealed four strategies used to leverage the connection with sport that facilitated oppor- tunities for alcohol brands to engage with consumers and to embed the brand in sport consumption. These strate- gies were essentially ‘calls to action’ as they sought to stimulate consumers to actively interact with the brand, as opposed to passively absorbing brand messages. We have described these calls as: call to collaborate, call to

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30 K. Westberg et al.

compete, call to celebrate and call to consume. Table 1 indicates the number of brand-authored messages from those examined which reflected these strategies. It should be noted that some messages contained more than one ‘call to action’. Further, each of these strategies aimed to achieve social activation, that is, to stimulate consumers to act as advocates for the brand, thereby gaining access to their personal social networks. Our analysis further indicated that collaboration and compe- tition were closely linked in their approach to engage- ment, as were celebration and consumption.

The analysis also identified that these calls to action used messaging and imagery that reflected two main themes designed to resonate with the target consumer: identity (e.g. sport identity, male identity and national identity) and camaraderie (e.g. a shared sporting passion bringing alcohol brand and consumer together as part of a community). While the use of these themes by alcohol brands may not be unique to social media, these plat- forms provide a highly desirable context in which to rein- force brand attribute positioning through asynchronous interactivity and the potential to mobilise quick action. The calls to action and the themes are described in the following sections.

Call to collaborate

Social media provide an ideal platform for collaboration and co-creation, and this strategy was the most frequently used. This strategy explicitly sought to transform con- sumers from passive observers to active participants. Many of the brands examined in this study embraced this opportunity by encouraging consumers to share content and facilitated this sharing through specific apps and events. A continuum of involvement strategies were employed to stimulate consumers to act as collaborators in the marketing of alcohol products. Lower involvement collaboration simply invited consumers to ‘like’, ‘com- ment’ or ‘share’ in response to posted content. A frequent

tactic used to prompt a comment was to post sport- related images combined with a sport-related question. Consumers also were encouraged to respond not only to brand generated content but also to content generated by other consumers, thereby inviting further brand con- versations. Higher involvement activities focused on the co-creation of content. For example, a ‘fancy dress’ com- petition organised at a major sporting event featured a professional photographer that produced alcohol sponsor-branded photos of participating fans. These fans were encouraged to post a link to the photo on their Facebook site, inviting their personal network to vote for their (sponsor-branded) photo to win a prize.

Call to compete

This call to action leveraged the competitive nature of sport, and sport fans, in order to engage consumers and augment the sport experience through promotional competitions, generally featuring alcohol branded sport- related prizes. These prizes were likely to be highly desir- able as they facilitate the winner’s display of team or sport identification. One competition, for example, required the purchase of a carton of beer to access a code which gave the consumer a chance to win an alcohol-branded rugby shirt. Other competitions offered prizes such as tickets to football playoff games and alcohol-branded footballs with the winner’s name inscribed. More elabo- rate competitions were also featured, such as a challenge to predict the outcome of football games. This activity ran throughout the season and encouraged consumers to invite friends to play along by placing a post on their Facebook page stating, ‘Think you can beat me? Down- load [brand sponsored app]’. A link to the app was also promoted. Once the app was downloaded, users were prompted by regular messages to interact and compete, with particular emphasis on engaging with their social media network.

Call to celebrate

This strategy appeared to be particularly successful in eliciting consumer interaction and involved generating a sense of camaraderie through celebrating sporting vic- tory. Using a winning game, shared achievements and team identification, this strategy sought to embed alcohol as an integral part of celebrating and basking in the reflected glory of a team’s achievement. Posts and tweets by alcohol brands augmented the emotions associated with sporting wins by linking images of sport success with alcohol. The call to celebrate strategy normalised the consumption of alcohol, presenting it as an appropriate way to commemorate a victory. Calls to celebrate embraced the shared identity of a sporting nation by

Table 1. Communication strategies used on Facebook and Twitter

Communication strategies (n = 164) No. of incidences %

Call to collaborate 73 36 Call to compete 53 26 Call to celebrate 40 20 Call to consume 35 17 Total 201 —

The sample relates to the total number of brand-authored mes- sages related to sport. As some communications were classified as containing more than one strategy, the total ‘number of inci- dences’ is greater than the sample size.

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How alcohol brands use sport 31

ingraining the brand as a part of sporting culture, bolster- ing the positive associations attributed to a major sporting achievement. The purposeful use of collective pronouns such as ‘we’ and ‘our’ helped to establish a persona for the brand that consumers related to as part of their sport identity. For example, a beer brand posted the following comment on Facebook after a particularly momentous victory: ‘We’ve done it. Australia has just been ranked the world’s number 1 test [cricket] nation. Under the solid leadership of Michael Clarke, our revamped team has put in the hard yards and dominated all in their path – well done boys!’ This comment was accompanied by a link to a relevant article in a leading newspaper, as well as an advertising image featuring a bottle of beer next to a cricket ball and the headline, ‘Best of the Test. Congrat- ulations Australia’.

Call to consume

Alcohol brands went beyond just linking their products to a celebratory ritual. In fact, some were explicit in their encouragement to consume alcohol as part of the regular sport experience. In addition, by using a variety of mes- sages to suggest that alcohol consumption should be a normal part of a fan’s sport experience and team identifi- cation, drinking and authentic fandom were aligned. For example, images and posts on Facebook and Twitter sug- gested that sport spectators could not fully enjoy a rugby league game unless they were drinking, commenting, ‘It’s not Super Saturday unless there’s a [alcohol brand name] in your hand! Who’s your team?’ Further, not only was alcohol consumption positioned as appropriate when celebrating a win, but also to commiserate a loss. A post from a beer brand suggested, ‘Your couch won’t buy you a beer if your team loses, but your friends will. Go on, get to the pub and watch the footy’. This brand fur- ther facilitated its call to consume by providing a ‘beer and footy’ finder mobile phone app in order to help consumers locate the nearest pub serving its beer and televising the football that it sponsors.

Message themes: identity and camaraderie

As alluded to in the previous sections, to facilitate con- sumer interaction, brand-authored communications of- ten appealed to various personal or social identities of consumers as well as attempting to generate a sense of camaraderie which is integral to the sport experience. Alcohol brands leveraged aspects of consumer identity

relating to sport, nationalism and gender. Identity influ- ences attitudes, behaviour and affiliations; individuals generally seek to belong to groups that positively influ- ence their self-esteem and cultivate a sense of belonging [30]. Messages and images used by alcohol brands on

social media frequently appealed to consumers’ identifi- cation with a particular sport or team. Sport-related prizes such as personalised shirts or footballs were common, and these incentives would be attractive to con- sumers wanting to signal their belonging and identifica- tion with a particular team. Further, content designed to leverage this association sought to engage consumers by asking questions like ‘Who’s your team?’ or ‘Who are you tipping to lift the trophy?’ The narrative in some of these messages also tapped into gender, particularly the ideals of masculinity, given the strong male skew of the sport audience. One post highlighted, ‘The NRL Grand Final kicks off this Sunday, that means it’s time to crack open a cold [beer brand] and get the guys around to watch the game’. Further, elements of national or cul- tural identity and solidarity were typically used in refer- ence to international competitions such as in the following post: ‘We’d like to salute the Australian side for bringing the precious urn back home and protecting us from a few years of sledging from our English counter- parts’. Quintessential Australian experiences, such as back-yard cricket, were also referenced, neatly conflating nostalgia, nationalism and group behaviour with the fol- lowing comment proclaiming, ‘We reckon the best way to support our cricket team on their current tour of South Africa is to clear your weekend, set up some stumps and invite your mates around for a few overs of backyard cricket, not to mention a few cans of cold [beer brand] – who’s up for it?’ In general, identity-themed messages positioned the alcohol brand as belonging to the ‘in-group’ and delivering a trusted social connection between the members.

A second key theme noted in many of the sport-linked communications was that of camaraderie. Camaraderie pertains to the mutual trust and friendship experienced by people who spend significant amounts of time to- gether and may include elements of solidarity and good- will to a sports-related cause [31]. Camaraderie is likely to be a significant component of the appeal of sport to al- cohol brands that use the psychological concept of group identification as a form of adhesive to bind their brand to social networks. Our findings suggest that content cre- ated by alcohol brand managers attempted to both partic- ipate in and facilitate the natural camaraderie that forms among sport fans. Communication via social media sought to group the brand and consumer as one, united in their support of a sport or team, sharing victories and defeat as illustrated by the post ‘We’ve done it. Australia has just been ranked the world’s number 1 test nation’. These messages commonly featured words such as ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘them’, signalling the unification as a community sharing a passion for sport and drinking. Fur- ther, social media content sought to engage the consumer in conversation about the match, as one might do with a fellow spectator or friend. The resultant discourse with

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consumers indicated that this strategy was effective in generating interaction with the brand.

Discussion and conclusions

Our findings exemplify early predictions that digital mar- keting strategies ‘have the potential to embed brands in the lives and lifestyles of consumers, creating an intimate relationship and sense of kinship between the brand and user’ [32]. Our results raise concerns about the use of sport-linked communication by alcohol brands on social media. Sport is a powerful mechanism by which these brands seek to engage consumers and encourage them to both create and promote content to be distributed to their social networks.

Sport-linked social media strategies employed by alco- hol brands go well beyond the traditional promotion of their product. They amplify the connection between alcohol and sport spectatorship, celebration or commis- eration. In essence, the ‘call to consume’ and the ‘call to celebrate’ reinforce the role of alcohol as part of the ritual of sport spectating, where tribal and repetitive behaviours are well documented [33]. The use of social media to promote consumption is a more powerful conduit than traditional media because of the enhanced ability for targeting, timeliness, interactivity and access to consumer networks.

While strategies focusing on celebration and consump- tion in sport are being augmented by social media, the strategies involving collaboration and competition loom as bigger issues for policy makers given that they more fully leverage the unique aspects of this contemporary platform. Sport fans are strongly motivated by the cama- raderie and esteem building opportunities afforded by social media [34] and therefore are likely to be responsive to the higher involvement activation strategies of ‘call to collaborate’ and ‘call to compete’ that we have identified. While collaborative behaviours and promotional compe- titions have been used in stadiums and through tradi- tional communication channels in the past, they now resonate more broadly through society through the power of social media. Using the various interaction functions provided by social media, fans are encouraged to both produce and redistribute messages that align with their identity, given the inherent social nature of sport con- sumption and fandom. Further, the use of sport as a com- mon interest around which alcohol brands engage with consumers is effective in attracting highly desirable user-generated content. Such content, produced by ‘citizen influencers’, as opposed to celebrity endorsers or brands themselves, is especially powerful given it carries perceptions of greater authenticity [35].

In the context of a medium in which public and private spaces are blurred, as well as the roles of brand and

consumer, we suggest that marketing strategies or tactics which seek to generate higher involvement collaboration are of most concern. Soliciting user-generated content, and encouraging the sharing of this and other brand cre- ated content, makes consumers complicit in the market- ing of alcohol, a process that was far more challenging in the pre-social media era. These strategies allow alcohol brands to permeate through peer networks in a manner which can elude alcohol codes and prove difficult for regulators to identify and control. Further, even if brand-generated content could be effectively controlled, consumer-generated content would not face the same constraints.

Essentially, brands profit from their messages being embedded in the ‘identities, cultural practices and social relations’ of social media users [36]. Further, brands ben- efit not only from the message but also by the message source and context. User-generated content is not sub- ject to the same limitations or regulations that may be im- posed on brands. An alcohol brand has a highly catalytic context in sport as it provides fertile ground for consumer engagement. An alcohol brand merely needs to start the ball rolling, with competitions, questions and interac- tions, all of which our research has amply highlighted, then empower and encourage consumers to grasp the message and propagate it, with enhanced authenticity and ready-made influencer networks. Further, in their ef- forts to stimulate this user proliferation of the brand, alco- hol marketers are aided by the sophisticated analytics and algorithms offered by social media platforms that en- hance the ability to test, target and measure the impact of communication strategies. The uptake of smartphones has facilitated the constant connectivity of social media users and as a result extends the visibility and frequency of both user and brand communication [37].

Where traditional media pushes content at consumers, social media delivers more engaged relationships where content is directed both to and from the consumer [38] and between consumers themselves. Sporting content in conjunction with the self-selected drive of social net- working confers a natural ‘pull’. As a result, sport con- sumers engage with alcohol branding during their own pursuit of content as well as in their, perhaps unwitting, push to other fans, which includes associations between alcohol and sport. To compound the effect, as we have shown, alcohol marketers make their branding more compelling through promotional offers, prize-driven competitions and give-aways. Valuable content leads to more engagement, which in turn enhances the sport– alcohol coalescence.

Our results also support findings from other studies implicating a connection between celebration, heroism, fandom and excessive alcohol consumption [39]. Further concern has been expressed regarding the ability to regu- late and control social media content [16], particularly as

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How alcohol brands use sport 33

a sizeable amount of this content is generated or dissem- inated by users. Policy makers must therefore urgently consider what forms of interaction and associated collab- oration are appropriate for alcohol brands to encourage consumers to engage in. Mechanisms are needed to ac- tively monitor the social media activity of alcohol brands in real time, with particular attention given to the less transparent activities which occur through consumer networks. Retrospective evaluations of activities not only face the limitations of attempting to capture the dynamic nature of exchanges long after they have occurred but also ultimately prove reactionary to a problem that is exac- erbated by not only new technology but also the enhanced skills of digital marketers to exploit such platforms. As highlighted in the introduction, emerging research

has suggested a concerning link between alcohol promo- tion on social media more generally and consumption by young people. In Australia, the 18–29 age group are the highest users of social media, with 90% using these plat- forms, and they have the greatest number of Facebook friends [40]. Therefore, regulators need to determine whether messages connecting alcohol and sport, particu- larly those that call for consumer engagement through collaboration or competition, are more likely to appeal to young people than other types of messaging appeals. And if so, what safeguards should be put in place to pre- vent exposure to this specific content given its engaging appeal. This problematic connection is likely to be readily apparent given what is already known about alcohol and young consumers, including that the Internet more broadly provides an opportunity for alcohol brands to tar- get underage consumers [41] and age filters on alcohol websites, and commercial Internet filters, have been shown to be ineffective [42]. More pointedly, Internet advertising of alcohol has been found to be associated with regular alcohol consumption by young males [43]. The youth segment is an especially vulnerable group

given their significant reliance on social media as a mech- anism for self-enhancement and belonging, and we would urge that policy makers and regulators err on the side of caution to ensure the rapid progression of technol- ogy does not subvert regulatory attempts to protect con- sumers. Although we did not identify the age profile of the users interacting on the social media sites we ex- plored, emerging studies highlight the strong potential for this segment to be exposed to alcohol marketing via new platforms [24] and that social media facilitates the sharing of both drinking behaviour as well as alcohol- related marketing messages by young people [44]. The findings from this study have illuminated the strat-

egies utilised by alcohol brands to leverage their associa- tion with sport. However, this study does have some limitations. First, our research focused on alcohol spon- sors of sport in Australia. Given the unique sporting and regulatory landscape in Australia, as well as its

drinking culture, these findings may not reflect strategies used by alcohol brands in other countries. In addition, although we focused on alcohol sponsors of some of the major sports which attract the largest audiences in Australia, there may be other strategies used by alcohol sponsors in other sports, or alcohol brands in general. Finally, although this research provides some insight into the social media strategies of alcohol brands, and to some extent consumer engagement with these strategies, this research does not identify the ultimate impact on con- sumer attitudes and behaviour with regard to alcohol consumption. Future studies need to explore the impact of these strategies on drinking practices in general, as well as on alcohol consumption as part of the sport experi- ence. Further, it is critical to determine whether particu- lar sociocultural or demographic segments are more vulnerable to these strategies. Finally, in terms of the identified calls to action, additional research should examine whether certain tactics are more effective in shaping the attitudes and practices of consumers in rela- tion to alcohol consumption.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education.

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How alcohol brands use sport 35

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