Anti-Alcohol Ads Featuring Children Withstand Parent Protests

Parent complaints that two United Kingdom television ads featuring children discussing drinking’s negative effects would upset young viewers have failed to block the ads’ airing, the Guardian reported April 21.

The Advertising Standards Authority has authorized continuation of the ad campaign from the Department for Children, Schools and Families, which is seeking to increase awareness of how alcohol use has a detrimental effect on other decisions made by young people. In the ads, children ages 8 and older talk about having been pressured to use drugs or have sex.

One of the televised ads is restricted from being broadcast before 9 p.m. The children and families department has emphasized — and the Advertising Standards Authority has agreed — that the ads target parents rather than children.

The advertising authority had received a total of 27 complaints. “We noted the complaints we received were from adults, many of them parents,” it stated. “We noted most of the complainants did not state that children had seen, or been distressed by, the ads,” which it said are delivered in a straightforward and not sensationalistic manner.