title: Alcohol Marketing on Twitter and Instagram: Evidence of Directly Advertising to Youth/Adolescents.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Assess whether alcohol companies restrict youth/adolescent access, interaction, and exposure to their marketing on Twitter and Instagram.
  
  
  METHODS
  Employed five fictitious male and female Twitter (n = 10) and Instagram (n = 10) user profiles aged 13, 15, 17, 19 and/or 21. Using cellular smartphones, we determined whether profiles could (a) interact with advertising content-e.g. retweet, view video or picture content, comment, share URL; and/or (b) follow and directly receive advertising material updates from the official Instagram and Twitter pages of 22 alcohol brands for 30 days.
  
  
  RESULTS
  All user profiles could fully access, view, and interact with alcohol industry content posted on Instagram and Twitter. Twitter's age-gate, which restricts access for those under 21, successfully prevented underage profiles from following and subsequently receiving promotional material/updates. The two 21+ profiles collectively received 1836 alcohol-related tweets within 30 days. All Instagram profiles, however, were able to follow all alcohol brand pages and received an average of 362 advertisements within 30 days. The quantity of promotional updates increased throughout the week, reaching their peak on Thursday and Friday. Representatives/controllers of alcohol brand Instagram pages would respond directly to our underage user's comments.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The alcohol industry is in violation of their proposed self-regulation guidelines for digital marketing communications on Instagram. While Twitter's age-gate effectively blocked direct to phone updates, unhindered access to post was possible. Everyday our fictitious profiles, even those as young as 13, were bombarded with alcohol industry messages and promotional material directly to their smartphones.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health & Kinesiology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA aebarry@hlkn.tamu.edu.
authors.forename: Adam E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Barry
authors.affiliation: Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Austin M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Bates
authors.affiliation: Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Olufunto
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Olusanya
authors.affiliation: Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Cystal E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Vinal
authors.affiliation: Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.affiliation: Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Janiene E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Peoples
authors.affiliation: Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Zachary A
authors.initials: ZA
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.affiliation: Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Shanaisa A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Billinger
authors.affiliation: Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Aishatu
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yusuf
authors.affiliation: Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Daunte A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Cauley
authors.affiliation: Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Javier R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Montano
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000329:Advertising / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000434:Alcoholic Beverages; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D061108:Social Media; D055815:Young Adult