ASA publishes findings from landmark project on alcohol ad targeting

Article summary

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has published findings from a landmark project to identify trends in ad targeting by alcohol brands on social media. This project, undertaken with five major platforms popular with children, revealed that alcohol brands should do more to refine their ad targeting to minimise the likelihood of children falsely registered as, or incorrectly inferred to be, 18 or older on social media seeing their ads. The ASA report identifies eight key insights on ad targeting practices including that a handful of ad campaigns did not appear to use any age targeting at all, many alcohol campaigns did not select ‘interest’ options to give greater confidence in reaching adults as opposed to children, and limited evidence was noted of advertisers actively barring their ads from being targeted to audience groups with topical interests strongly associated with individuals under 18. The report further outlines steps that marketers should adopt to...