Social Media Marketing

As alcohol advertisers are hampered by regulation, they become more creative: sponsoring events and utilizing various online techniques to market their brands. Online games, quizzes, videos, screen-savers, and customized music are increasingly being used by advertisers.

Digital advertising not only appears on the supplier’s website, but also on many social networking sites. On Facebook, for example, advertisers can sponsor games, groups, fan pages, videos, applications, events, and more. The idea is that the marketing will go viral as users pass along the information to their friends.

This, of course, has lead to concern over youth exposure to this type of marketing, and its impact on underaged drinking. The Center for Digital Democracy has already called for investigative action by the Federal Trade Commission and state authorities into the adequacy of the industries’ advertising codes.

Recall that most alcohol marketing is self regulated. Industry groups have come up with standards for advertising that industry members must comply with. Age verification is required by these codes, and can be found on most alcohol company websites. Based on FTC reports, the codes require companies to use tools to prevent minors from back clicking and changing their birth year, as well as requiring advertisers to ensure that their website does not appeal to minors.

Age verification will likely become a larger issue for alcohol advertisers on social networking sites, even if the ad is targeted to people over 21. How are advertisers supposed to stop content from age restricted sites from being rebroadcast by visitors? The real question is: should advertisers be legally responsible for rebroadcasting of its advertising materials by someone else.? We think not.

Social media marketing will be an interesting area to watch. Will the FTC or state governments step in and require advertisers to make additional controls for advertising on social media sites?