Dive Brief:

• Bud Light became the first alcohol brand to push out ads on the popular messaging app Snapchat this weekend at its Whatever, USA event on Catalina Island.
• The Anheuser-Busch brand rolled out age-gated ads to the 21-and-over crowd using the Stories feature on Snapchat, stitching together a mix of brand-created and user-generated content to promote the event.
• The beverage company's campaign differs from others in that it is specific to a branded event and the Snapchat Story is labeled "sponsored. "

Dive Insight: 

While some 60% of Americans aged 13 to 34 are active on Snapchat, watching some two billion videos per day, according to Bloomberg, the bulk of Snapchat users tend to skew younger. For this reason it was critical for Snapchat to implement age-gated ads for the Bud Light campaign, and for the same reason, it is unclear how many Snapchat users were actually served the ads over the weekend.

Still, the age targeting opens up an interesting avenue for advertisers. Snapchat has always had big confidence in its ad options -- proven by its $750,000 price tag right out of the gate -- but has been criticized for its lack of targeting options. The Bud Light campaign proves that Snapchat is at least able to target based on age -- perhaps other options will emerge as the platform matures.