Joseph Madden Independent Monica Swahn Rogers Kasirye

Keywords: alcohol marketing, marketing strategies, urban slums, Kampala, Uganda, Africa

Abstract

Objective: To understand alcohol marketing strategies used in an urban slum, photographs of street-level (defined as being seen while walking along the streets) alcohol advertisements were assessed to determine the marketing types, content, and brands in Kampala, Uganda. The content of these photographs was categorized and analyzed to understand the strategies implemented in marketing alcoholic beverages at the street-level in the community.

Methods: We collected pilot data in May 2019 of the content and placements of alcohol advertisements in urban slums using smart phones. Three teams of researchers walked a set route of four stretches of 100 meters surrounding the boda boda (motorcycle) taxi stand in the urban retail center in three selected areas in Makindye in Kampala, Uganda. After the data collection, the photographs were reviewed, categorized, and simple, descriptive statistics were computed.

Results: Across three locations, 181 photos of alcohol advertisements were taken with 129 of the photos meeting the criterion for analysis. The most common marketing message was focused on the product itself with quality, taste, and national pride being the top three sub-categories. Overall, 80% of the advertisements were posters found outside bars, restaurants, or supermarkets. Of the products advertised, 75% of the products were produced by one of two companies: Diageo or AB InBev.

Conclusions: The approach for capturing and coding alcohol marketing in urban slums can be refined and used in future research. Also, the approach can be instrumental for characterizing the alcohol environment at a specific time or for continuous monitoring of marketing to inform and evaluate intervention strategies aimed at reducing alcohol advertisement exposure.

Author Biographies

Joseph Madden, Independent

Joseph Madden, MPH, CPH, is an independent public health researcher and alumnus of the School of Public Health at Georgia State University, and is based in Decatur, GA, USA. E-mail: jmadden6@gmail.com.

Monica Swahn

Dr. Monica Swahn, PhD, MPH; E-mail: mswahn@kennesaw.edu, Dean, Wellstar College of Health and Human Services, Prillaman Hall, Room 4103, 520 Parliament Garden Way, Kennesaw, GA 30144, USA and Affiliate Faculty Member in the School of Public Health at Georgia State University.

Rogers Kasirye

Uganda Youth Development Link, Uganda

How to Cite

Madden, J., Swahn, M., & Kasirye, R. (2024). Who is marketing alcohol in the slums of Kampala? A closer look at marketing types, content and brands. International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research, 12(S2), S91–S96. https://doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.461

Section

Special Issue: Alcohol Prevention Research and Policy Development in LMICs

In consideration of publishing this article the authors transfer, assign, or otherwise convey all copyright ownership to the International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research. By this transfer, the article becomes the property of the International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research and may not be published elsewhere without written permission from the journal.

This transfer of copyright also implies transfer of rights for printed, electronic, microfilm, and facsimile publication. The author(s) will receive no royalty or other monetary compensation for transferring the copyright of the article to the International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research. IJADR, in turn, grants each author the right to republish the article, without paying royalties to IJADR, in any book of which he or she is the author or editor, subject to the express conditions that (a) the author notify the International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research in writing of this republication and (b) a credit line attributes the original publication to the International Journal Of Alcohol and Drug Research.

Licence:

Articles are licenced with a Creative Commons License Deed -- you are free to share articles but must give appropriate attribution, may not use for commercial purposes or distribute modified works. See CC/BY-NC/ND/4.0/.

Author Agreement:

As the submitting author, and on behalf of all of the manuscript authors I agree with the terms above relating to the copyright transfer of the manuscript to the International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research.