Hansard

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer.

As my party’s spokesperson for children and young people, I am always pleased to speak on any issue that relates to the wellbeing of Scotland’s young people. I welcome this members’ business debate, which gives us the opportunity to consider measures that we can take to protect children from harmful products. I thank the cross-party group on improving Scotland’s health for the work that it has done on the topic, and I thank Kenny Gibson for bringing the issue to the chamber.

As we all know, marketing is one of the most powerful of the tools that are used to persuade us to make purchases and buy goods. It affects trends and it influences buying patterns. When we walk through the front door of a supermarket or any other shop, the visual tool of marketing is all around us.

Children are particularly drawn to marketing. Experts have pointed out that children and young people often accept unconditionally, and without questioning it, the information that is presented in adverts. However, parents do not need statistics for them to realise the significance of advertising in children’s lives. We know that, on television, brands and commercial messages of all sorts are a large part of our children’s lives from a very early age, and we know that, as children mature, they experience intense marketing along the way. The average eight to 13-year-old child watches about three and a half hours of internet or television a day, and it is estimated that those same children make approximately 3,000 requests each year for products and services that they have seen on TV or online.

Research clearly indicates that alcohol advertising and marketing have a significant impact on youth decisions on whether to drink: advertising plays a huge role in that. That, in turn, can be seen to contribute greatly to creating an environment that promotes underage drinking. I read somewhere not so long ago about a study of young people who were asked to respond to alcohol advertising. The study found that underage youths are drawn to music and to animal and people characters, and to the humour in alcohol advertising. The same study found that ads that were liked by youths were more likely to elicit from them the response that they wanted to purchase the brand and products that were being advertised.

Digital marketing has advanced beyond TV adverts. Popular social media stars put out posts here and there, telling their followers what a great time they have had while using certain products. Although adults are, perhaps, minded to be cynical about their motives for doing so, some young people take such posts at face value. That is a worrying thought, considering the frequency with which alcohol and tobacco appear in them.

The link between advertising and youth trends is therefore evident, and the ways in which young people see marketing are evolving, which presents new challenges in protecting them from harmful products such as alcohol.

Alcohol knows no social bounds—it can affect anyone in society—and that can have a knock-on effect on children. Regulation on its marketing should keep up with technology, but I firmly believe that we need to take a balanced approach: we need to educate children that they have to respect alcohol. It is also possible that we need a culture change, because I am not convinced that just banning alcohol from children’s sight until they turn 18 is the way to go. I agree that alcohol marketing has no place in childhood, but let us remain open to combining that approach with a strong foundation that is based on education of children from an early age.