This story additionally ran on NPR. This story may be republished totally free (details).
Why does e-cigarette maker Juul promote its product on TV when cigarette adverts are banned? The quick reply: Because it will possibly.
For almost 50 years, cigarette promoting has been banned from TV and radio. But digital cigarettes — these battery-operated units that always resemble outsized USB flash drives with flavored nicotine “pods” that clip in on the top — aren’t addressed in the law.
Since launching its product in 2015, Juul Labs, based mostly in San Francisco, has taken the e-cigarette market by storm, and now accounts for roughly 75% of e-cigarette gross sales at comfort shops and mass stores. Until just lately, TV adverts haven’t performed a job in Juul’s advertising, which relied totally on social media.
But this 12 months, the corporate launched a $10 million TV promoting marketing campaign, “Make the Switch,” that it stated was geared toward serving to adults discover a more healthy various to smoking cigarettes. The marketing campaign additionally options print and radio adverts.
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Many public well being advocates are skeptical of the corporate’s repeated assertions that grownup people who smoke are its target market. When the corporate launched its modern e-cigarette 4 years in the past, it relied on social media outlets reminiscent of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to advertise its product in adverts that, particularly initially, featured playful, partying 20-somethings.
As the product caught on, younger individuals helped unfold the phrase to different younger individuals utilizing hashtags like #juul. Social media influencers who posted content material praising Juul amplified the message.
“There’s overwhelming evidence that the behavior of Juul contributed to the product being sold to youth,” stated Dr. Robert Jackler, a professor and the principal investigator at Stanford Research Into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising (SRITA) on the college’s medical faculty.
Juul stated it isn’t targeting children and teens and helps efforts to restrict tobacco merchandise to individuals underneath age 21. “We recognize that youth use of vapor products is a problem that requires an effective and appropriate response from industry and regulatory bodies,” stated Ted Kwong, a Juul Labs spokesman. “We strongly support restrictions on social media marketing of vapor products.”
In current years, the variety of excessive schoolers and even youthful children who say they’ve used e-cigarettes has grown quickly, alarming mother and father and public well being advocates.
Last 12 months, virtually 21% of highschool college students reported utilizing e-cigarettes within the earlier 30 days, in keeping with an analysis of National Youth Tobacco Survey data revealed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2011, the proportion was simply 1.5%. Between 2017 and 2018 alone, the quantity of highschool college students who stated they have been present e-cigarette customers grew by 78%, to greater than 3 million students general. The CDC stated 1 in 20 center faculty college students, these in grades 6 by means of Eight, reported vaping within the earlier 30 days.
In distinction, 3% of adults stated they used e-cigarettes in 2017, in keeping with the CDC.
E-cigarettes, additionally known as vapes, have been launched within the United States within the mid-2000s. Some early variations resembled precise cigarettes. Juul’s product may be plugged right into a USB port to recharge and suits inconspicuously into the palm, typically irritating mother and father and academics searching for to cease teenagers from utilizing it.
There’s proof that smoking e-cigarettes could act as a “gateway” that leads younger individuals to attempt cigarette smoking. And cigarette smoking stays the main explanation for preventable dying, killing greater than 480,000 people within the United States yearly.
E-cigarettes don’t produce tar, through which a lot of the cancer-causing and different dangerous chemical compounds from tobacco smoke are discovered. But each merchandise contain nicotine, which is extremely addictive and may hurt the creating brains of adolescents.
In addition, the vapor that folks inhale when the liquid nicotine in e-cigarettes is heated could comprise cancer-causing chemicals, heavy metals and different harmful substances.
Nevertheless, e-cigarettes are sometimes touted as a more healthy various to cigarette smoking, and that’s the premise of Juul’s “Make the Switch” campaign. The testimonial adverts characteristic adults describing the constructive modifications of their lives after they gave up smoking cigarettes to make use of Juul.
“We want adult smokers to hear directly from former adult smokers that Juul Labs provides a true alternative to combustible cigarettes and is showing unprecedented success, with studies showing 40 to 56 percent of adult smokers fully switching within 90 days of use,” stated Kwong.
Although adolescents could also be extra more likely to see adverts in social media than conventional broadcast and print adverts, the Juul TV adverts in all probability have an effect on them, stated Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine who developed a tobacco prevention toolkit for teachers.
“When you say that a product is for an adult, the message is not ‘Don’t use,’ it’s ‘Use these products and you’ll appear to be adult or mature,’” Halpern-Felsher stated.
Anti-smoking advocates want to see the identical advertising limits utilized to e-cigarettes that apply to so-called flamable cigarettes, together with banning them from promoting on TV and radio.
They would additionally wish to see the changes that have been put in place underneath the Master Settlement Agreement in 1998 between the most important cigarette producers and the attorneys normal of 46 states utilized to e-cigarettes. The states had sued the cigarette makers to recuperate their prices for treating sick and dying people who smoke. Among different issues, the settlement banned most transit and billboard promoting of cigarettes, branded merchandise, free product samples and sponsorships of occasions, reminiscent of live shows and sporting occasions.
E-cigarette makers, reminiscent of Juul, have used a few of these promoting strategies over time.
Last 12 months, after the federal Food and Drug Administration stated it was cracking down on an “epidemic” of youth vaping, Juul introduced modifications to its advertising actions.
The firm shut down its Facebook and Instagram accounts and restricted Twitter communications to non-promotional posts, Kwong stated.
That’s like closing the door to the barn after the horse has left, stated public well being advocates. Young individuals, they added, are persevering with to publish about Juul on these websites.
“It’s too late,” stated Dave Dobbins, chief working officer on the Truth Initiative, an anti-tobacco advocacy group. “The kids are doing their work for them.”
This story additionally ran on NPR. This story may be republished totally free (details).
This KHN story first revealed on California Healthline, a service of the California Health Care Foundation.
Michelle Andrews: [email protected]”>[email protected], @mandrews110
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