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Cigarette couponing goes mobile
  1. Andrew B Seidenberg,
  2. Catherine L Jo
  1. Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
  1. Correspondence to Andrew B Seidenberg, Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA; aseiden{at}live.unc.edu

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Smartphone use has rapidly increased, and by 2020, there will be an estimated 6.1 billion Internet-enabled mobile phone users worldwide.1 This phenomenon has created new opportunities for the public health and medical communities, which have used smartphones to collect health information, conduct surveillance and promote behaviour changes, such as smoking cessation.2–4 The popularity of smartphones has also attracted leading American cigarette manufacturers Altria and Reynolds American, who have begun offering digital cigarette coupons redeemable using smartphones.

Altria has introduced the MHQ App, which offers two coupons per week. Using the smartphone's global positioning system, the app identifies nearby tobacco retailers that accept Marlboro digital coupons (figure 1A). The app user selects a retailer for redemption, and a digital coupon (eg, ‘$1.50 off one pack’) …

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Footnotes

  • Contributors ABS conceptualised the study and led the writing of the manuscript's first draft. CLJ helped draft and revise the manuscript.

  • Funding AS is supported by the UNC Lineberger Cancer Control Education Programme (R25 CA57726). The National Institute On Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health funded CLJ's effort in preparing this study (Award Number F31DA039609). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.