# MSG-179 — Alcohol content must not be aimed at people under the drinking age

> Alcohol brands, and drinks designed to resemble alcoholic ones, must not be marketed in a way that appeals to or targets people under 21.

- **Rule ID:** MSG-179
- **Layer:** Message content (`MESSAGE_CONTENT`)
- **Checks:** `campaign.sample[] + campaign.description`
- **Severity:** BLOCKING — Breaking this rule gets the submission rejected outright.
- **When it bites:** Gates approval — get this wrong and registration is refused
- **How it is detected:** AI judgement over the submitted form
- **Fix type:** Hard stop — not remediable, resubmission will not help
- **Required by:** T-Mobile
- **Applies:** Applies to every 10DLC registration.
- **Canonical URL:** https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/message-content/msg-179/

## Why this rule exists

An age gate is the whole basis on which alcohol messaging is permitted at all, so copy built to appeal to minors defeats the mechanism rather than failing to install it — which is why T-Mobile treats this as its own refusal rather than as an age-gating defect. Alcohol-resembling drinks are named explicitly because they slip the gate by construction: an alcohol-free brand extension in the same livery is sold to the same audience with none of the restrictions, and the brand association is the marketing. The innocent cause is a genuine 0% product line marketed on exactly the assets built for the alcoholic one.

## How to fix it

Remove the youth-facing appeal — the cartoon, the school or campus timing, the sweet-confectionery framing, the under-21 talent — and market the drink to adults. Note that the age gate is not the answer to this finding: gating the site is already required for alcohol content, and a campaign that targets minors is refused whether or not the gate exists.

## Common mistakes

- A zero-alcohol product does not escape this when it carries the parent brand's identity — the brand is what is being marketed, and it is an alcohol brand.

## Provider rejection codes

| Provider | Code | Resubmission allowed |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Bandwidth | `706` | yes |
| Twilio | `30456` | no |