LONDON: Twitter has introduced an age-screening function in a move that will allow alcohol brands to run campaigns on the platform that would only be seen by consumers over the legal drinking age in their country.
Alcohol brands have operated age-restricted websites for many years, meaning consumers must say they are over the legal drinking age by entering their date of birth before being allowed to access the site.
Until now, there had been no way of replicating that process on Twitter, leading alcohol marketers to express concern at the inability of the platform to control the age of the audience interacting with their Twitter marketing activity.
Bud Light, Jim Beam, Heineken, and Bacardi are among the first brands to sign up for the service, which was unveiled Monday night. In the US, Bud Light will use age-screened promoted accounts to reach people who are 21 and older and interested in the National Football League during its #WhatsYourSuperstition campaign.
Tarun Jain, Twitter product manager for revenue, confirmed that the system would work on Twitter.com, as well as iOS and Android devices.
“Starting today, alcohol brands can safely grow their of-age network of Twitter followers in a way that's simpler than before,” he said. “Our hope is that this approach to age-screening will enable alcohol brands to responsibly and safely connect with the right audience on Twitter.”
Last year, during his time as CMO of Diageo, Andy Fennell said his company was “reticent” about the platform because of this issue and revealed he was having meetings with Twitter executives to plan a way forward.
This story originally appeared on the website of Marketing.
