The year 1996 was a ground breaking year in liquor advertising. Ten months after ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment in December of 1933, leading liquor firms voluntarily agreed to not advertise on radio. The agreement was extended to include the new medium of television in 1948. In June of 1996, however, Seagram broke with the longstanding agreement by airing a commercial for its brand Crown Royal on a local NBC station in Texas (in the Figure below, the vertical reference line denotes the date of this decision by Seagram). Despite a large public outcry over the airing, the rest of the liquor industry followed suit by formally agreeing to lift its ban on radio and television advertising in November of 1996.
My current research examines these advertising changes, and considers the potential efficacy of partial restrictions on the media used by liquor firms.
See My Most Recent Publication: International Journal of Industrial Organization, Volume 26, Number 1, 2008