Posted: 22nd September, 2011. Topics: Alcohol, diageo, facebook, social media, under-age drinking
By Ashley Clarke, Credos
As well as exciting new opportunities, the advent of new media has created many challenges for the advertising industry. For alcohol marketers, one of the most significant dilemmas has been how to prevent underage children from seeing alcohol ads online. Age verification has obvious limitations and creating alternative safeguards has proved difficult.
But this week the European Forum for Responsible Drinking (EFRD) and the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) launched new guidelines to change how the public, particularly children and young adults, are exposed to alcohol marketing.
Alcohol brands who wish to advertise on social networks, blogs and mobile apps and who use user-generated content will now have to follow new guidelines to regulate online marketing. The guidelines will hopefully help prevent alcohol brands from marketing alcohol to under-18s through social media platforms.
However, this coincides with drinks company Diageo announcing a multi-million pound deal with social networking site Facebook, which has raised concerns that this marketing will lead to more under-age children being exposed to alcohol advertising.
Currently, the youngest age a person can create a Facebook account is 13. But younger children who lie about their age in order to access Facebook may later be served inappropriate content – such as alcohol ads.
Credos’ publication earlier this year ‘Responsible drinking: Time for a responsible debate?’ highlighted the significant gaps in the existing body of research and calls for more research on youth alcohol consumption in the UK.
With greater evidence, we can more confidently discuss how advertising can be optimally regulated, and whether increased alcohol marketing, particularly ads on social networking sites, contributes to a rise in under-age drinking.
