ABSTRACT
The consumption of alcohol plays an important part in the way young people create desired identities and live their social lives. The emergence of online technologies such as social networking sites (SNS) has raised questions regarding the nature and content of marketing and the implications this has for policy and regulation. This chapter discusses how alcohol brands use SNS as part of their repertoire of marketing activities to create and reinforce powerful brands, and how consumers respond to and engage with these activities. Youth culture attaches great value to brand labels and symbols. Branding can be seen as a process whereby intangible emotional benefits and attributes such as 'luxury', 'coolness' or 'popularity' comes to be associated in consumers' minds with particular products. In categories such as alcohol where there are very few differences between products in terms of their tangible characteristics, branding is a key strategy for differentiation and adding value.
