I believe the results of this study, but it's not the fault of the beer advertisers:
Television beer ads featuring cute animals appeal to school kids and make them want to buy the brand of beer being advertised, says a study in the current issue of the Journal of Health Communication.
Researchers at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation's Prevention Research Center in California showed 66 TV beer ads to 253 kids whose ages ranged from 10 to 17. The kids rated ads with animal characters as their favorites and ads that focused on products or showed adults as their least favorite.
Specifically, the study found that 35 percent of the kids agreed that a Budweiser beer ad featuring a rock star ferret replacing talking lizards as the official beer mascot made them want to buy Budweiser.
In contrast, only 5 percent said an Anheuser Busch beer ad focusing on a "Legacy of Quality" made them want to buy the beer.
Of the 66 beers ads shown to the children, only five did not have elements -- humor, music, people characters, animal characters and story -- that appealed to kids.
The researchers say their findings reinforce research that shows that alcohol advertising influences young people by creating positive opinions about alcohol, stronger intentions to use alcohol and more alcohol consumption.
Link.
The fault rests with a juvenile adult population that gets a kick out of the same things kids enjoy. If adults didn't enjoy the same things as kids, the marketing lines between the two groups wouldn't get so blurred.
Earlier post on related subject, and a quote from Terrible Ted Dalrymple:
In our society, the telescoping of the generations is already happening: the knowledge, tastes, and social accomplishments of thirteen-year-olds are often the same as those of twenty-eight-year-olds. Adolescents are precociously adult; adults are permanently adolescent.
