Youth’s exposure to and engagement with e-cigarette marketing on social media: a UK focus group study

OBJECTIVE: Electronic-cigarettes (e-cigarette) are promoted creatively through social media and considering the potential influence of social media marketing on young people, we explored young people’s exposure to and engagement with social media marketing of e-cigarettes. DESIGN: Semistructured discussion groups. SUBJECTS: Twenty focus groups with 82 young people aged 11–16 living in the Central belt of Scotland. METHODS: Youths were asked about smoking and vaping behaviours, social media use, vaping advertisement exposure and were shown illustrative examples of social media content (eg, images and videos) about different messages, presentations and contextual features. Transcripts were imported into NVivo V.12, coded thematically and analysed. RESULTS: Youths highlighted a variety of tactics e-cigarette companies use, including influencer or celebrity endorsement, attractive youth flavours, bright colours and emotional appeal to advertise and promote their products directly to young people. Social media influencers who advertise e-cigarettes were described as portraying e-cigarettes as ‘cool’ and ‘fashionable’ to entice viewers to try the products. Youths considered that there is a need for more restrictions on social media content to protect youths while also still allowing smokers to purchase them as a cessation device. CONCLUSIONS: Our study highlights that the e-cigarette industry is using previously employed tactics similar to the tobacco industry to advertise and promote its products on social media. These findings suggest the growing need for governments to work together to develop and implement policies to restrict the advertising and marketing of e-cigarettes on social media.