Advertising on social media platforms is the most common and popular format to talk to consumers in today’s marketplace. Beverage alcohol advertising is no different in this regard, but suppliers must take precautions to minimize the risk of exposure to those under the legal purchase age. The DISCUS Code provides detailed digital/social media and media buying guidelines that describe how suppliers can responsibly market their products on these platforms. Each social media platform also has their own alcohol advertising policies that suppliers must follow to market on those sites.

For instance, the Code provides that digital marketing communications should be placed only in media where at least 73.8% of the audience is reasonably expected to be of the legal purchase age, or where the digital platform provides the ability to directly communicate to an audience of legal purchase age individuals through the use of their registered user database. Many popular social media platforms provide advertisers the ability to target alcohol marketing materials only to those known to be over the legal drinking age by utilizing user-provided data.

If relying on the 73.8% demographic standard for placement, the advertiser can employ the use of a syndicated data source to determine the platform’s demographic makeup and purchase or place the ad using “2 +” syndicated audience composition data, such as available from Nielsen Online or comScore, based upon the most recent three-month site average of available audience data of unique visitors.

The use of these syndicated data sources, however, may not always be reasonably accessible to all industry members. To increase Code compliance and better enable suppliers to responsibly advertise on social media platforms, this webpage will provide periodically updated demographic data information and alcohol policies from the major social media networks.

Meta

Recent demographic data shows that Facebook and Instagram as platforms meet the Code’s 73.8% LPA demographic standard.

Beverage alcohol advertising is permitted on Meta’s platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Threads, etc.)

Please refer to the Meta Alcohol Policy.

Pinterest

Recent demographic data shows that Pinterest as a platform meets the Code’s 73.8% LPA demographic standard.

Beverage alcohol advertising is permitted on Pinterest.

Please refer to the Pinterest Alcohol Policy.