The advertising tug of war between alcohol companies and programs promoting alcohol awareness is shifting in favor of alcohol companies.

Recent studies show that alcohol warning slogans are not serving their purpose — deterring people from drinking.

According to Iowa State professor Thomas DeCarlo, current alcohol warning slogans such as “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk” and “Know when to say when” are not effective. Nor do they drive any heart-wrenching message into the reader, he said.

However, commercials and advertisements for alcohol have helped the sale of alcohol skyrocket over the past couple of years by causing people to ignore warning labels on the products.

Catchy slogans such as Budweiser’s talking-frog and singing-penguin campaigns have attracted thousands of fans and have influenced today’s youth to ignore any labels on the products that warn them of the adverse effects of alcohol.

In order for the warning slogans to work, the message must become more visual for the reader.

Slogans should be colorful, catchy and full of modern technology. The old pictures of wine goblets crashing together to signify what happens when one drives drunk just do not convince today’s youth to not drive drunk.

In addition, today’s youth do not want to read labels telling them what could happen to them if they consume alcohol.

Warning slogans need catchy words that will make the younger population think twice about taking a drink. We are not saying the previous slogans never worked, but in order for the tug of war to shift back in favor of alcohol-awareness programs, the programs must entice the audience with exciting, catchy commercials and advertisements that relate to today’s youth generation.