Joe Camel was forced out of ads; Why is Juul allowed on TV?
Why does e-cigarette maker Juul advertise its product on TV when cigarette ads are banned? The short answer: Because it can.
For nearly 50 years, cigarette advertising has been banned from TV and radio. But electronic cigarettes — those battery-operated devices that often resemble oversized USB flash drives with flavored nicotine “pods” that clip in on the end — aren’t addressed in the law.
Since launching its product in 2015, Juul Labs, based in San Francisco, has taken the e-cigarette market by storm, and now accounts for roughly 75% of e-cigarette sales at convenience stores and mass retail outlets. Until recently, TV ads haven’t played a role in Juul’s marketing, which relied primarily on social media.
But this year, the company launched a $10 million TV advertising campaign, “Make the Switch,” that it said was aimed at helping adults find a healthier alternative to smoking cigarettes. The campaign also features print and radio ads.
Many public health advocates are skeptical of the company’s repeated assertions that adult smokers are its target audience. When the company launched its sleek e-cigarette four years ago, it relied on social media outlets such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to promote its product in ads that, especially at the beginning, featured playful, partying 20-somethings.
As the product caught on, young people helped spread the word to other young people using hashtags like #juul. Social media influencers who posted content praising Juul amplified the message.
“There’s overwhelming evidence that the behavior of Juul contributed to the product being sold to youth,” said Dr. Robert Jackler, a professor and the principal investigator at Stanford Research Into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising (SRITA) at the university’s medical school.
Juul said it is not targeting children and teens and supports efforts to limit tobacco products to people under 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,” said Ted Kwong, a Juul Labs spokesman. “We strongly support restrictions on social media marketing of vapor products.”
In recent years, the number of high schoolers and even younger kids who say they’ve used e-cigarettes has grown rapidly, alarming parents and public health advocates.
Last year, almost 21 percent of high school students reported using e-cigarettes in the previous 30 days, according to an analysis of National Youth Tobacco Survey data published by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2011, the proportion was just 1.5 percent.
Between 2017 and 2018 alone, the number of high school students who said they were current e-cigarette users grew by 78 percent, to more than 3 million students overall. The CDC said 1 in 20 middle school students, those in grades 6 through 8, reported vaping in the previous 30 days.
In contrast, 3 percent of adults said they used e-cigarettes in 2017, according to the CDC.
(Tribune News Service)