Australia’s under-16 social media ban is forcing a global rethink of youth marketing

In the two months since Australia became the first country to implement a ban on social media for under-16s, the policy has quickly become a test case for marketers worldwide. Its impact on youth reach is already shaping how advertisers in other regions are preparing for similar restrictions.

The ban has made waves well beyond Australia’s borders. In the U.K., more than 235,000 people have written to their members of parliament calling for similar restrictions. Spain, Italy and Germany are among a host of EU countries also considering limits, with French President Emmanuel Macron calling for an under-15 social media ban to be in place by September.

For marketers, the question is no longer if change is possible, but how to adapt. Planning is shifting toward contextual strategies, gaming communities and trusted premium media platforms.

“[An under-16 ban] would not mark the end of youth marketing,” Matt Wilke, head of media partnerships at Mediaplus UK, told The Current. “It would mark the end of lazy assumptions about targeting.”

“For agencies and brands that have already invested in privacy-first planning, contextual intelligence and creative quality, this would be a manageable transition. For those still reliant on opaque audience modeling, it would be more disruptive.”

Australia’s marketing reset

With direct access to Australian under-16s now restricted on the likes of YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok, Australia offers a first look at how media buyers are reassessing where and how they engage young audiences.

According to Sarah Keith, group managing director at Involved Media, youth attention has already shifted to alternative digital spaces.

“Anecdotally, we understand teens are using alternative platforms to communicate such as WhatsApp and Messenger and focusing on gaming platforms such as Roblox and Fortnite,” Keith said. “Our future planning is therefore very much based on contextual advertising, ad placements based around relevance and where their communities are.”

She anticipates budgets will likely move to where teens gather, with shared-viewing environments such as BVOD and SVOD predicted to benefit, alongside age-relevant cinema releases and contextually aligned DOOH placements.

“While valuable direct access on the largest platforms has been severed, we know that teenagers are still online,” Keith added. “Targeting through gaming communities, and through audio streaming apps such as Spotify, which has a 13-plus limit for appropriate ad content, will be effective, contextually relevant replacement channels.”

Beyond Australia’s borders

In Europe, where political pressure is mounting for tougher rules, marketers are assessing what similar restrictions could mean.

Fabian Kurzmaier, digital media planner at Mediaplus Performance in Munich, said an under-16 ban in Germany would mean a seismic shift in a market where YouTube and other social platforms are the dominant digital environments for audiences under 16.

“[YouTube and other social media platforms] function as core community spaces, capturing the vast majority of media time, cultural relevance and content engagement for this age group. Other digital channels simply don’t offer the same scale, creative impact or contextual relevance,” he said.

According to Kurzmaier, a comparable ban in Germany would not lead to a simple budget reallocation, but to “a substantial loss of digital reach.”

“Advertisers would likely shift spend to CTV, family-focused environments, gaming ecosystems, cinema and selected OOH placements,” he added.

“For many brands, the strategy would move from directly engaging young audiences to targeting parents or broader family units instead. Ultimately, it would reshape — not merely redistribute — youth marketing in Germany.”

YouTube’s shifting value proposition

In the U.K., Wilke noted that while an under-16 ban would cause youth-focused brands to reconsider the value proposition of YouTube and other social platforms, it would not be a radical disruption but a case of accelerating a shift already underway.

“For most U.K. marketers, YouTube and social platforms are already being assessed through a risk-adjusted value lens rather than pure reach,” he said. “If under-16s were formally excluded, the immediate impact would be less about abandoning platforms and more about redefining their role.”

He anticipates that YouTube would likely remain valuable for family co-viewing, contextual relevance and upper-funnel brand priming. However, the proposition would shift away from precision youth targeting and toward context, creative quality and safer environments.

In any case, according to Wilke, the significance of YouTube and other social platforms in campaigns targeting under-16s has often been overstated.

“In practice, many under-16 strategies already rely on a blend of environments like gaming platforms, video streaming, creator ecosystems, family-shared devices and offline-to-online touchpoints,” he said. “YouTube and social platforms sit within that mix, but they are not the only effective routes.”

If the U.K. were to follow Australia’s lead, he predicts ad spend to be reallocated “with a degree of caution, rather than urgency.”

“We would expect spend to fragment across environments that offer either strong contextual alignment, clear regulatory positioning or indirect access via household or co-viewing behavior,” he said. “That means more investment in premium video, gaming ecosystems, broadcaster-owned digital environments and curated programmatic supply.”