THE NOTICEABILITY OF WARNINGS ON ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTAINERS

A public health warning is currently required for all alcoholic beverage containers in the United States. One factor in the effectiveness of this warning is its noticeability-the characteristics that influence whether or not it is likely to be seen. Three experiments addressed this aspect of the warning. Experiment 1 examined warning design factors on currently available containers and found that the warnings are not very noticeable. Experiments 2 and 3 examined four salience features (pictorial, color, signal icon, and border) and demonstrated that they could improve the likelihood that a warning will be seen Overall, the research suggests ways of making warnings more salient and thus increasing the probability that they will have the desired effects.