To be fair 99 Bananas still tastes like ass with a hint of incredible artificial banana.
Also the cultural aspect is just different. It is generally harder for kids to get alcohol in my experience and also you (usually) don’t carry a bottle of 99 bananas and swig it every few minutes out in public.
Perhaps most importantly is that alcohol doesn’t contain nicotine. People get addicted to alcohol but not in the same way people get addicted to nicotine.
I don't know. But they clearly don't have a lot of money, a refined pallet, and don't mind crazy flavors. Everyone I know seemed to have tried it in a particular time in their lives, and oddly they don't seem to drink it anymore.
Regulators have no control over who looks at a given billboard or television ad.
It's a new phenomenon that they might (might) be able to tell TikTok or Youtube to estimate the age of individual viewers and limit which topics can appear in advertisements to different age groups.
The existence of the candy flavors and any public marketing of those flavors (even on the label in the store aisle) is implicitly marketing to children.