Adolescent perceptions of dissuasive sticks: a web survey among 16–20 year olds in Norway

BACKGROUND: While increasingly stringent rules for cigarette pack design restrict the advertising potential of cigarette packs, the cigarette stick itself remains a potential medium for marketing. Common design features are filters, slim cigarettes and capsule cigarettes. Recent research indicates lower general appeal, more negative perceptions of taste, and greater harm for cigarettes designed to be unappealing (dissuasive sticks), and the aim for the current study was to investigate perceptions of dissuasive cigarette sticks among Norwegian adolescents, and learn about factors that might make cigarettes unappealing to them. METHODS: Two hundred eighty-one adolescents, 16–20 years old, smokers and non-smokers, assessed the appeal, taste, harmfulness, and which one they would most likely want to try, of 6 different cigarette sticks in a web survey. The cigarette sticks included two standard designs: cork and white filter sticks, and 4 dissuasive designs: green sticks, yellow sticks, and two white sticks with a health warning printed on the side. RESULTS: All dissuasive designs were perceived as less appealing, worse tasting, more harmful than the standard cork tip and white tip cigarettes. The dissuasive sticks were less often chosen as a cigarette one would want to try. The evaluations of designs were relatively similar across gender, smoking and snus use status, and smoking susceptibility. In multinomial regressions, perceptions of taste and harm differences were associated with perceived product trial. CONCLUSIONS: This study supports earlier findings, and suggest that the use of unpleasant colours and warnings printed directly on cigarette sticks could increase perceived harmfulness, reduce notions of good taste, and possibly reduce desires to experiment with cigarettes in adolescence.