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Industry watch
Online marketing activity following New Zealand’s vaping legislation
  1. Calvin Cochran1,
  2. Lindsay Robertson2,
  3. Janet Hoek3
  1. 1 Voices of Hope, Auckland, New Zealand
  2. 2 Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
  3. 3 Public Health, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
  1. Correspondence to Professor Janet Hoek, Public Health, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand; janet.hoek{at}otago.ac.nz

https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2021-056750

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    New Zealand’s (NZ) recently enacted vaping legislation imposes R18 sales restrictions (Section 40), prohibits advertising and sponsorship of vaping products (with some minor exceptions) (Sections 23 and 28) and bans specific sales promotions (Section 33)1 (see online supplemental file 1 for a timeline of the enactment of the law’s provisions). Yet despite these provisions, vaping and tobacco companies still use social media to stimulate co-created content, reward referrals and maintain associations with youth-oriented events, such as music festivals.

    Supplemental material

    [tobaccocontrol-2021-056750supp001.pdf]

    Stimulating content and rewarding referrals

    Companies encourage engagement by inviting comments on flavours, nicotine content and store location, and by asking lifestyle questions (see online supplemental file 2). Posted comments, and tags linked to friends or brands, create third-party endorsement, extend reach and may recruit new followers (see online supplemental files 3 and 4).

    Supplemental material

    [tobaccocontrol-2021-056750supp002.pdf]

    Supplemental material

    [tobaccocontrol-2021-056750supp003.pdf]

    Supplemental material

    [tobaccocontrol-2021-056750supp004.pdf]

    Social media algorithms can further expand reach. The extensive use of tagging and hashtags (eg, #giveaway) on Instagram by its users may reach people who do not follow vaping or tobacco companies’ social media pages and draw them into content they did not seek out. Philip Morris New Zealand Limited(PMI (NZ)) used their IQOS NZ Instagram page to encourage people to follow @iqos_nz, like the post and ‘Tag 2 smoker/vaper friends’ (see online supplemental file 4). Other posts encourage young people to assume quasi-sales roles. An …

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    Footnotes

    • Twitter @calvincochran

    • Contributors CC proposed the initial analysis and collected examples shown in the manuscript. JH reviewed the examples and developed the manuscript. LR critically reviewed the manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

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

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.