Abstract
BackgroundE-cigarette promotion on social media coincided with the rapid growth of e-cigarette use among American youth, particularly with the increased JUUL pod vaporiser use. We examined commercial JUUL-related messages on Instagram to identify marketing appeals used to target users along the continuum of e-cigarette use; we mapped the appeals to existing theoretical marketing frameworks to better understand industry strategies.MethodsHashtag-based keyword rules were used to collect JUUL-related posts from the Instagram application programming interface, 1 March–13 November 2018. Posts were classified as commercial or non-commercial. A combination of machine learning methods, keyword algorithms and human coding were used to characterise message themes in commercial posts.ResultsKeyword filters captured 50 817 relevant posts and 41% were commercial. Among commercial posts, 91% contained recruitment/trial-based appeals (eg, combustible tobacco cessation; product sampling; giveaways) and 71% featured reinforcement/addiction-related appeals (eg, loyalty programmes). None of the commercial messages contained e-cigarette cessation-related appeals and less than 25% mentioned quitting combustible tobacco as a recruitment appeal.ConclusionsInstagram posts featuring e-cigarette related marketing can increase exposure to persuasive messages encouraging e-cigarette trial and use particularly among susceptible youth. Stronger regulations are needed to prevent exposure to social media marketing among young social media users.
Funder
National Cancer Institute
Truth Initiative
Subject
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health,Health (social science)
Cited by
5 articles.
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