The effectiveness of textual and visual statements in alcohol warnings.

The aim of this paper is to report on a study that analyzes the relationship between distinctive alcohol warning messages and the intention to purchase alcoholic beverages. More specifically, it assesses the influence of three different kinds of message warnings: i) a responsibility warning statement; ii) a synthetic nutritional table; iii) an image of a food product of equivalent caloric content to the reference beverage. The research was conducted through a 2 ́2 ́2 factorial design on two selected cocktail similar to alcohol volume, but different in their caloric intake. The product images alternately combined with various information elements was showed to 240 randomly selected consumers whom were asked to quantify their intention to buy the products. Data were analyzed through SPSS using ANOVA and Fisher’s significance. Results suggest that different alcohol warning messages can influence the intention to purchase alcoholic beverages and confirmed the effectiveness of the Image of Content in the choice for healthier menus and dissuasive communication campaigns