Prevalence and strategies of energy drink, soda, processed snack, candy and restaurant product marketing on the online streaming platform Twitch

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the prevalence of food and beverage marketing on Twitch.tv (Twitch), a social media platform where individuals broadcast live audiovisual material to millions of daily users.Design: Observational analysis of the prevalence of 238 food and beverage brands in five distinct categories (processed snacks; food delivery services and restaurants; candies, energy drinks/coffees/teas; and sodas and other sugar-sweetened beverages) over the course of 18 months.Setting: Twitch streamer profiles and stream titles between January 2018 and July 2019. Twitch chat room messages during July 2019.Participants: None.Results: There was a significant increase in brand exposure on Twitch both in stream titles (sodas and candies, P < 0·05) and on streamer profiles (sodas, restaurants/food delivery services, candies, and energy drinks/coffees/teas, P < 0·05) over the 18-month study period. Energy drinks, coffees and teas had the most exposure with 1·08 billion exposure hours from profiles and 83 million exposure hours from titles. Restaurants/food delivery services and sugar-sweetened beverages were the most frequently mentioned products in chat rooms with 1·24 million messages and 1·10 million messages, respectively.Conclusions: This study is the first to demonstrate the extent by which food and beverage brands garner millions of hours of exposure on Twitch. Future studies should evaluate the impact that this level of exposure to nutrient-poor, energy-dense products may have on behavioural and health outcomes.