Alcohol shock tactics don't work, say academics

Shock tactics used in public health campaigns don't work and could actually make things worse, according to leading academics.

Speakers at a meeting hosted today in London by ABInBev, Noctis and NUS, looking at issues around student drinking, argued that campaigns with a more positive message were more effective.

Academics advocated using an approach called "social norms" which aims to bridge the gap between misperceptions and reality, so campaigns using this approach would simply tell the truth.

A study carried out by Leeds University found that around 60 per cent of students were either drinking within weekly limits or not drinking at all.

So any campaign message would highlight this positive fact rather than focussing on the minority who were drinking too much.

Bridgette Beiwick from the Academic Unit of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Leeds said: "There are 70,000 students in Leeds if they were all out binge drinking there would be a major up rising - there is no way the city could deal with that number of people out in force."

The research presented found that hazardous or harmful drinking was in the minority, yet incidents involving drunken students were more memorable and more likely to reinforce the message that students drink irresponsibly.

Noctis executive director Paul Smith said: "We need to stop blindly accepting that binge Britain is universal when binging is only part of the problem."

In the case of smoking, Jennifer Bauerle director of the National Social Norms Institute, said research has proven that stress causes smokers to smoke more.

She speculated that pictures of diseased lungs and other warnings on cigarette packs could have the unwanted negative effect. Bauerle added that the "scare the health into them" days in public health campaigns were numbered.

The event's chairman - and associate editor of The Times​ newspaper - Daniel Finkelstein argued that the social norm approach was becoming more popular due to a "genuine intellectual interest" in it.

It can be cheaper to implement, he added, and so would be an attractive option for government.

But he said: "If you want a positive change then you have to have a positive message."