Alcohol brands excited about Twitter age verification

Twitter and Buddy Media has launched a free tool designed to help alcohol brands market only to people of legal drinking age.

Jack Daniel’s, Jim Beam, and MillerCoors’ Coors Light and Miller Lite have served as the testing group. Now that the program is public, any advertiser can go ahead and add the restrictions onto their Twitter account.

When users attempt to follow a beer, wine or spirit brand on the social site, they will automatically receive a direct message on Twitter from the company, directing them to an age screening page. If they give an age that meets the requirement of their local drinking law, the consumers will be able to follow alcohol brands.

The age-supplying process is a one-time deal, so users don’t have to continually enter their birth date to follow each new brand

“Many brands have asked for a way to screen the age of their followers on Twitter,” Buddy Media CEO Michael Lazerow said in a blog entry.

Andrea Javor, a digital exec for Jim Beam, insisted that the company can now use Twitter better as a marketing platform without worrying as much about attracting underage drinkers.

“So now that we have this, I think you will see a lot more activity from us across all of our brands,” she said. “I think you’ll see us doing more of the Promoted Tweets andPromoted Trends and other advertising on Twitter. We know that our [of-age] consumers are there. We know we need to be there.”