Big Tobacco has been around a long time and has influenced every generation in different ways through companies such as Marlboro or Juul. Generation Z is no exception.
The concept behind Big Tobacco marketing is to encourage people to try nicotine products and potentially have them become addicted. This continues the dangerous cycle of continuously buying their merchandise.
Big Tobacco sneakily advertises to Gen Z through its visually appealing products or through earned media. According to the business marketing website Hubspot, earned media is publicity or media that isn’t provided by the company itself but through organic routes such as customers, social media and influencers.
Big Tobacco is more known today for its vape products, such as Juul, which have the benefit of being tobacco-free but still contain addictive nicotine. Vape products are attractive to Gen Z and other young adults for their fun colors and flavors.
A July 2018 Gallup survey found 1 in 5 Americans ages 18-29 use vape products and 1 in 5 U.S. high school students currently use vape products.
A lot of vape products carry a variety of sweet flavors, allowing consumers to devour them like candy. For example, the popular brand Puff Bar offers fun, candy-like flavors such as Lychee Ice or Pink Lemonade in bright packaging.
A Sept. 18, 2020 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found 83% of young adults who use e-cigarettes use flavored varieties.
These fun flavors are just one of the many reasons why people are attracted to vape products, especially Gen Z.
There is even a recently popularized brand called Hype Bar that has a boba flavor, boba being one of the most popular drinks among Gen Z.
In addition to fun flavors, new age Big Tobacco products are also appealing because of their sleek, gadget-like design, small enough to hide in a pocket.
Unlike Juuls, which are typically dark-toned that keep them more discreet, Puff Bars are brightly colored and attract a younger customer base.
They can be thrown away after the flavored nicotine juice inside runs out.
According to Puff Bar’s official website, “products are disposable, one-step systems, requiring no recharging, refilling, or maintenance,” whereas Juuls and similar vape products, such as the Novo, are reusable, only having to replace the liquid cartridge whenever it’s empty.
Because minors aren’t legally allowed to use these products, the feature of being easily hidden is highly appealing to Gen Z.
Big Tobacco uses stealth marketing to sell to Gen Z, leading many young people to think they’re not being targeted through advertising.
Many young people are more familiar with anti-vaping commercials highlighting the message that smoking is harmful.
When talking to my friends, a lot of them have seen more ads informing how smoking is like signing your life away rather than ads promoting nicotine products. These ads are typically produced by campaigns such as Truth, funded by the national public health organization Truth Initiative.
Its ads can be regularly found on TV and social media platforms such as TikTok.
A big marketing step Truth took was having influencers attached to its cause.
One ad I saw followed TikTok influencer Victoria Emilia (King_Victober) on her journey to quit vaping.
The commercial was a good way to convince Gen Z to quit nicotine because of the TikTok influencer’s popularity.
Advertisements such as this show that many influencers Gen Z choose to follow on social media smoke nicotine products, which could encourage them to use nicotine too.
Through TikTok’s young demographic, nicotine and vaping get advertised easily through earned media where people are presented the product almost by word-of-mouth.
A trending pop-screamo song on TikTok called “Where’s My Juul?” tells the story of a girl getting frustrated trying to find her Juul and exposes children to the appeal of nicotine.
Watching influencers lip sync to songs about Juuls and being caught vaping could sway Gen Z to give it a try, especially because young people often want what their favorite influencers have in an effort to be like them.
People may think it’s on them for succumbing to societal or peer pressure when it comes to nicotine consumption, but everything leads back to ads by Big Tobacco. Through earned media and attractive designs of nicotine products, Gen Z is not immune to Big Tobacco’s century-long deception.
