Presence of flavoured electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) products in US ENDS advertisements, 2015–2020: a content analysis

OBJECTIVES: Electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) products come in a variety of flavours (eg, fruit, dessert, menthol). Tobacco advertising has historically used flavours as an advertising tactic, but little is known about flavour type and prevalence in ENDS advertisements. We assess the presence of flavoured ENDS in ads over time, by media outlet (eg, magazines, online) and brand. METHODS: We acquired ENDS ads (N=4546) that first ran between 2015–2017 (n=1685; study 1) and 2018–2020 (n=2861; study 2) in outlets including opt-in emails, direct-to-consumer mail (study 1 only), video (TV and online), radio (study 2 only), static online/mobile (ie, ads without video or moving graphics), social media, outdoor (eg, billboards; study 2 only) and consumer magazines. We coded for presence of flavoured ENDS products and flavour type (eg, fruit, tobacco, menthol) and merged this information with metadata on ad year, outlet and manufacturer/retailer brand. RESULTS: Overall, nearly half (45.5%; n=2067) of ads in our sample featured a flavoured product. Tobacco (59.1%; n=1221), menthol (42.9%; n=887) and fruit (38.6%; n=797) were the most advertised flavours. Over time, the proportion of ads containing tobacco-flavoured and menthol-flavoured ENDS generally decreased before menthol rebounded in 2020. The proportion of ads containing fruit, mint and dessert flavours generally increased over time, with a substantive drop in 2020. We found notable differences in flavoured ENDS advertising by outlet and brand. CONCLUSIONS: The overall presence of flavoured ENDS in our sample of ads remained relatively consistent, with tobacco flavour decreasing over time and some non-tobacco flavours increasing over time until 2020 when the presence decreased.