Vaping industry faces lawsuits for marketing efforts aimed at the young
Image from Pixist.com
Juul Labs Inc. is under fire from parents and activist groups after a rise in e-cigarette use. Juul often chose bright, cheery images for their marketing campaign.
Some might be able to remember opening the newest issue of one of their parents’ magazines to numerous advertisements for the “clean” e-cigarettes alongside the full-page, rugged chewing tobacco advertisements, scratch-and-sniff cologne cards, and elegant rear-end adverts for tequila. These pages painted tobacco, smoking, and its alternatives as vices of the finer, mature side of life.
Vaping, while heavily-researched only in the past couple of years, has existed for a majority of the 2000s, and has become a staple in advertising. Because of this permissive approach, Juul Labs Inc., and its associated company Altria Group Inc., have been accused through many lawsuits, including one filed recently in the state of Wisconsin, of targeting middle and high schoolers of America.
Many of the complaints focus on the glorification of vaping and nicotine consumption; anonymous student John Doe sees a deceptive message in various Juul advertisements.
“They make it look like a nicotine addiction is a good time,” they said. “They're not going to show the negative effects or the risks you’re taking. They’re just like ‘hey look at this cool thing you can do’ and then in small print it’s like ‘if you’re 21.’”
Junior Hanna Tran has noticed a general increase in vaping among people her age but realizes that the extent of its danger is widely unknown.
“I do think it's an issue, I do think it's increasing a lot, and it's quite new, so no one knows the bad effects of it,” she said.
With the product being a growing trend among young adults, Doe has come to their own conclusion as to why.
“I think it’s more of the group mentality than anything,” they said. “For example, someone would think, ‘oh, my friends vape and then they’re asking me if I want to do it.’”
E-cigarette use as a whole has certainly gone up in the past decade, and that is reflected by the numbers: the percentage of 12th graders who reported using vape products rose from 28% in 2017 to 37% in 2018. With this rise came an onslaught of lawsuits towards e-cigarette companies, including those filed recently by Michelle Bain and Melinda Bowes on behalf of their children, as well as others. The complaint, filed in the Eastern District Court of Wisconsin on Veterans Day, details the popular Juul product as one which “resembles a flash drive, something that high school students might routinely carry with them.” The complaint describes its characteristic shape as something which “fits in the palm of your hand, making it easy to conceal.”
Tran learned that the concealability of a Juul product is not only attractive to teens but also that it is of no coincidence.
“I think the company or whoever makes Juul probably does make them look hidden, to attract teens and make it not seem obvious or so that it couldn’t be caught easily,” she said. “It seems they market it towards that kind of secrecy.”
Senior Emma Everett found that the smooth, trimmed look of a Juul product not only lends to its allure but also allows users to easily hide it.
“They probably wanted it to look sleek in a way, but I think it helps that it is easy to conceal as well,” she said.
However, concerns don’t stop at the physical characteristics of the widely-used device. Juul, while not the first to do so, picked up flashy, colorful advertisements to splash up their marketing campaign. A hashtag-filled following earned them up a reputation for building a cult-like audience among young users with both new and previous nicotine exposures.
The effectiveness of Juul’s poppy marketing campaign lends to its presence in America’s youth; many observed the raised questions about unique marketing strategy, including Everett.
“The different flavors and colors makes it more attractive to a child’s brain,” she said.
Another anonymous student, Jane Doe, also attributes the advertising surrounding flavor as a call for younger consumers.
“A big part is the flavor thing because if they’re advertising flavors, it’s more youthful,” they said.
Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Juul’s small, compact design hides easily into the palm of a hand. Juul came under a lawsuit in November, one of many filed previously, accused of teenager-focused marketing practices.
The lawsuits piling up against companies in the vaping industry have become more significant with recent discoveries in the long-term health effects of vaping, notably “popcorn lung” (bronchiolitis obliterans), pneumonia, and collapsed lung, all detrimental to lung health and listed under effects of vaping by John Hopkins Medicine.
Everett draws a comparison between teenage vaping and that of cigarettes, implying that the vaping epidemic is synonymous with the actions of tobacco companies for numerous years.
“They basically took smoking and they were like ‘oh we finally got over that, now let’s put it in a thumb drive and give it to kids,’” she said.
Juul will continue to face lawsuits against multiple groups; the Wisconsin suit certainly has not been the first. A settlement was reached by the Center for Environmental Health in 2019 with Juul restricting its previously unmonitored practices, but hundreds more remain undecided.
The actions taken by Juul to market their device have been labeled as malicious by many groups, but it is still in contention whether enough accountability for marketing towards youth will be mandated by the courts. John Doe believes that Juul Labs Inc. is at least partially liable for marketing to teenagers, but disagrees with them compensating for it.
“Yes, it’s their fault because they’re still marketing towards the younger audience,” they said. “However, when you get to a certain point in your teenage years, you are responsible for your own decisions, so if you’re choosing to vape and you’re having medical problems because of it, that’s kind of on you.”
By Martin Bond
Oshkosh West Index Volume 117 Issue 3
December 11th 2020