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Abstract
Background Oral nicotine products (ONPs) are increasing in sales, availability and flavours. In April 2022, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) obtained regulatory authority over non-tobacco nicotine products, which include many ONPs. Advertising practices for ONPs need monitoring to understand marketing strategies and inform FDA marketing authorisation decisions.
Methods ONP advertisement (ad) expenditure data (January 2016–June 2023) were purchased (print, TV, radio, online video, online display and mobile; N=125 236) and adjusted to 2023 dollars. Descriptive statistics examined expenditures by ONP brand and media outlet over time.
Results Velo spent the most on ONP advertising (89.8%), followed by Zyn (5.7%) and Black Buffalo (1.2%). Velo encompassed the majority of TV (98.1%), radio (99.9%) and mobile ad spend (87.3%); Zyn was the leader for online display (46.2%) and online video (71.1%); and Black Buffalo accounted for 100% of print ads. In 2023, (January–June), Zyn accounted for 88.0% of ad expenditures and Velo spent $0, though the total amount spent by Zyn was far less than Velo in prior years. TV ads (98.1% Velo) aired primarily on prime time/late night or 09:00–17:00 on weekends. Radio ads (99.9% Velo) aired primarily from 06:00 to 10:00, 12:00 to 14:00 and 15:00 to 19:00 on weekdays. Overall, expenditures focused on reaching a national audience, though print ads indicated potential male-targeted marketing.
Conclusions Following FDA’s regulatory authority over non-tobacco nicotine products, ad expenditures for Velo dropped to $0. Ongoing surveillance of ONP ad trends can inform FDA marketing authorisation decisions by revealing brand-specific marketing strategies that may be targeted toward populations at increased risk of tobacco use.
- Advertising and Promotion
- Nicotine
- Tobacco industry
- Non-cigarette tobacco products
Data availability statement
The data underlying this article were provided by Vivvix (formerly Numerator Ad Intel) under license. Data will be shared on request to the corresponding author with permission from Vivvix.
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
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WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN ON THIS SUBJECT
Oral nicotine products (ONPs) have been gaining popularity since 2016 in the USA.
ONP advertisement (ad) expenditures were targeted toward TV and radio between 2018 and 2021.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was granted regulatory authority over non-tobacco nicotine products, which include many ONPs, in March 2022.
WHAT IMPORTANT GAPS IN KNOWLEDGE EXIST ON THIS TOPIC
Since 2021, several market and regulatory changes occurred that may have impacted allocation of ad dollars by ONP companies.
Ongoing surveillance of ONP brand-specific marketing strategies is needed to inform FDA marketing authorisation decisions.
WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS
Velo, Zyn and Black Buffalo had different marketing strategies, with Velo focused on TV/radio, Zyn focused on online display/video and Black Buffalo focused on print.
Print ads by Black Buffalo indicated potential targeted marketing toward males.
Across years, Velo spent more on ads than all other brands; Zyn spent the most in 2023.
Velo’s ad expenditures dropped to $0 in 2022, corresponding with FDA’s authority over non-tobacco nicotine products.
Introduction
‘Modern’ oral nicotine products (ONPs) include nicotine pouches, lozenges, gummies, gum, tablets and toothpicks, and exclude other oral tobacco products like chewing tobacco, snuff or snus. ONPs, and nicotine pouches in particular, have been gaining popularity in the USA since 2016,1 2 with sales increasing rapidly beginning in late 2021.3 In 2021, 1.9% and 0.8% of US students reported ever or current use of nicotine pouches, respectively.4 Corresponding with the rapid increase in nicotine pouch sales seen between 2021 and 2022,3 in 2022, 16% of US youth and young adults reported ever use and 12% reported current use of nicotine pouches.5 In 2022, the global nicotine pouch market share was valued at US$1.99 billion and is expected to reach US$22.98 billion by 2030.6
Many ONPs are marketed as being ‘tobacco-free’7 8; such marketing tactics, along with the availability of non-tobacco flavours and candy-like products, may increase their appeal among young people.9–11 ONP advertisement (ad) expenditures emphasised TV and radio between 2018 and 2021,7 12 13 but details surrounding specific media outlets and brand-specific marketing strategies are scarce. In addition, since 2021, several changes occurred that may have impacted allocation of ad dollars by ONP companies, including the introduction of new nicotine pouch products to the marketplace14; Dryft nicotine pouches being rebranded as Velo Max15; a growing number of proposed and enacted state-based restrictions on flavourings in non-ONP products (eg, flavoured e-cigarette bans) after the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) 2020 announcement to remove unauthorised flavoured cartridge-based e-cigarettes from the market16; and FDA obtaining regulatory authority over non-tobacco nicotine products in March 2022.17 Understanding brand-specific targeted marketing practices can help guide FDA decisions about ONP marketing authorisations.
The current study was designed to (1) monitor trends in ONP ad expenditures from January 2016 through June 2023 overall and by brand, and (2) describe the media outlets and market areas being targeted for ONP ad dollars over time.
Methods
Data sources and measures
We used ONP consumer ad expenditure data (https://go.vivvix.com/numerator-ad-intel) from 1 January 2016 through 30 June 2023. First, we excluded ad expenditures targeted toward businesses as defined by Vivvix. Then, we excluded an additional $0.66 million in print ads that were defined by Vivvix as being consumer-facing but clearly were focused on business-to-business print outlets (eg, NACS Magazine, Grocery Headquarters, Convenience Store News). After these exclusions, 0.7% of Vivvix-monitored print outlets (293 magazines and 265 newspapers) featured ONP consumer ads. Vivvix also monitored TV ads from 7 network and 104 cable stations (73.0% featured ONP ads); radio ads from 31 designated market areas (DMAs, geographical regions used by marketing agencies to track advertising18) (100.0% featured ONP ads); online display ads (ie, static image advertisements on websites, such as website banners) from 4000 websites/URLs (21.5% featured ONP ads); online video ads (ie, video ads on websites, such as those occurring before/during/after a video stream) from 500 websites/URLs (22.2% featured ONP ads); and mobile ads from 2500 websites and 1000 applications accessed via mobile device, which included both static image and video advertisements (7.4% featured ONP ads). For TV, the data purchased from Vivvix covered approximately 95% of the market; for print and radio, that range was closer to 85–90%. Given the sprawling nature of the digital landscape, Vivvix’s approach for online display, online video and mobile was to obtain a representative sample.
ONP ad occurrences (individual runs; N=125 236) were allocated to print (n=6; <0.01%), TV (n=20 244; 16.16%), radio (n=91 112; 72.75%), online video (n=922; 0.74%), online display (n=11 850; 9.46%) and mobile (n=1096; 0.88%). For each ad occurrence, the company/advertiser name, media outlet details (eg, TV channel, radio station type), DMA where the ad aired, air date and cost (in US$) were provided. Media outlet details included the media channel (eg, TV, print, radio, etc), source (eg, TV channel, website, newspaper, etc) and time of day.
Data analysis
Ad expenditure data were adjusted for inflation to 2023 dollars using the US Consumer Price Index.19 Then, expenditures were aggregated by quarters within years to examine trends by media outlet for top-spending brands. Descriptive statistics summarised expenditures by ONP brand, media outlet details and DMA. Analyses were conducted using R V.4.1.0 (http://www.r-project.org/).
Results
Across all years, Velo spent the most on ONP advertising (89.8%), followed by Zyn (5.7%), Black Buffalo (1.2%), On! (0.5%) and smaller miscellaneous brands (1.0%). Table 1 shows ad expenditures by media outlet for Velo, Zyn and Black Buffalo. Between January 2016 and June 2023, Velo spent most of their ad dollars on TV (59.9%), followed by radio (30.1%), and then mobile (7.4%), online display (1.9%) and online video (0.7%). Velo did not spend any money on print advertising. In contrast, Zyn concentrated their ad dollars on online display ads (43.5%), followed by online video (35.1%), TV (13.7%) and mobile (7.1%). Zyn spent <US$0.01 million on radio ads and $0 on print ads. Black Buffalo spent most of their ad dollars on print (54.3%), followed by online display (25.7%) and mobile ads (20.0%). Black Buffalo spent <US$0.01 million on mobile ads and $0 on TV or radio advertising. Out of these three brands, Velo encompassed the majority of all TV (98.1%), radio (99.9%) and mobile ad spend (87.3%), whereas Zyn was the leader for online display (46.2%) and online video (71.1%), and Black Buffalo accounted for 100% of print ad expenditures.
Oral nicotine product advertising expenditures (millions of 2023 US$) by media outlet and designated market area (DMA) for Velo, Zyn and Black Buffalo, January 2016–June 2023
Online supplemental figure 1A–C show trends over time by media outlet for Velo, Zyn and Black Buffalo. For Velo, ad expenditures peaked in late 2019/early 2020, followed by a sharp decline that continued throughout 2020. Velo had another smaller peak in expenditures in early 2021. In contrast, Zyn’s ad expenditures were relatively stable between early 2019 and 2020, declining in early 2021, then peaking again in late 2021 and again in 2023. Black Buffalo’s expenditures peaked in early 2021 and twice in 2022, but were much lower than those for Velo and Zyn (range $0.01–0.22 million). Shown in online supplemental table 1, in 2022 (at $0.22 million), Black Buffalo was the leader in ONP ad expenditures, accounting for 43.1% of 2022 ONP ad expenditures, followed by Zyn (at $0.18 million; 35.3%). In 2023 (January through June), Zyn accounted for 88.0% of ad expenditures (at $0.66 million), though the total amount spent by Black Buffalo and Zyn in 2022 and 2023 was far less than Velo in prior years (range $6.20–11.95 million).
Supplemental material
Online supplemental table 1 shows ad expenditures by media outlet, brand and top DMAs across years. For TV (98.1% Velo), expenditures were concentrated on prime time (20:00–23:00; 37.9%), late night (23:00–02:00; 19.4%) and weekend daytime (09:00–17:00; 16.5%) timeslots. The top four TV channels were TBS (13.7%), AMC (12.8%), CNN (12.4%) and TNT (11.0%). For radio (99.9% Velo), expenditures were concentrated on weekday midday (12:00–14:00; 34.1%), weekday AM drive (o6:00–10:00; 24.3%) and weekday PM drive (15:00–19:00; 23.0%) timeslots. The top three radio channel categories/genres were Adult Contemporary (22.7%), Rock (18.8%) and News/Talk/Information (16.9%). The only four print outlets (100% Black Buffalo) were Men’s Journal (73.7%), Chicago Sun-Times (15.8%), In-Fisherman (5.3%) and USA Today (5.3%). For online display (46.2% Zyn; 31.6% Velo), the top websites were eBay (9.5%), Yahoo! (5.1%) and Drudge Report (5.1%). The top websites for online video (71.1% Zyn) were Fox News (18.1%), Washington Post (12.0%) and New York Post (10.8%).
ONP ad expenditures were featured in 111 of a possible 210 DMAs in the USA monitored by Vivvix (52.9%). Shown in online supplemental table 1, across all years, the majority of expenditures were in the national market (70.4%, targeting the entire USA), followed by Houston (4.6%), Atlanta (4.1%), Charlotte (3.5%) and Las Vegas (3.2%), showing how ad spend was concentrated on reaching the largest audience across media outlets. Shown in table 1, DMA marketing strategies were similar across brands, with 67.9% of Velo, 67.9% of Zyn and 88.6% of Black Buffalo ad expenditures taking place in the national market.
Discussion
This study monitored trends in ONP ad expenditures from January 2016 through June 2023. We found that Velo was the primary driver of ONP ad expenditures, followed by Zyn and Black Buffalo, which is consistent with research showing that Velo and Zyn are market leaders in ONP sales.3 For Velo, expenditures peaked in 2019, followed by a sharp decline and another smaller peak in 2021. These two peaks correspond with Velo nicotine pouches being launched in the USA15 and Dryft nicotine pouches being rebranded as ‘Velo Max’.15 For Zyn, ad expenditures first took off in 2019, and for Black Buffalo, ad expenditures increased in 2021; both correspond with their respective nicotine pouch products being launched in the USA.20 21 Velo’s ad expenditures dropped to $0 in 2022 and remained at $0 through June 2023. This dramatic decline in Velo’s ad expenditures may be due to several factors, including the FDA being granted regulatory authority over non-tobacco nicotine products in March 2022. The decline in expenditures may also represent a shift to point-of-sale, direct-mail and/or social media ads, which has been seen for other products in response to tobacco marketing restrictions on traditional media12 22 and was not captured in the current dataset.
In addition to varying ad expenditure trends over time for Velo, Zyn and Black Buffalo, we also observed differences in marketing strategies by brand. For Velo (the top spender across years), ad dollars were concentrated on TV and radio, whereas for Zyn, ad dollars were concentrated on online display and online video, and for Black Buffalo, print and online display dominated their expenditures. By media outlet, TV ads ranked first in expenditures and second in number of ads purchased, whereas radio ads ranked second in expenditures but first in number of occurrences, highlighting the lower cost per ad for radio. In addition to their relatively low cost, radio ads are appealing due to substantial audience reach.23 TV and radio ads were both dominated by Velo. Given that Velo’s ad expenditures dropped to $0 in 2022 and 2023, it is not surprising that we observed a shift in overall ad expenditures from non-digital (eg, TV, radio) to digital (eg, online display) outlets in those years. Indeed, in 2022 and 2023, most ad spend focused on online display/video (Zyn and Black Buffalo), with radio and TV (Velo) spend dropping to near-zero.
For online display/video (driven by Zyn), the top outlets for expenditures were news sources, such as the Washington Post and New York Post. As of December 2023, Washington Post’s audience included more females than males (53.8% vs 46.2%) and slightly more people >44 years of age than those from all other age groups (51.9% vs 48.1%),24 whereas New York Post’s audience also included more people >44 years of age (51.7%), but had more males than females (57.0% vs 43.0%).25 For print ads (controlled fully by Black Buffalo), expenditures were low compared with other media types. As of December 2023, Men’s Journal, the top outlet for print expenditures, was viewed online by more males than females (57.1% vs 42.9%) and people >35 years of age than those from all other age groups (60.7% vs 39.3%).26 A recent content analysis indicated that among Zyn ads with identifiable people in 2019, all included male models.7 Relatedly, national US data from 2020 indicate that males were more likely to have ever used ONPs.27 More work is needed to determine how ONP companies may engage in targeted marketing toward males and the impact of marketing exposure on ONP use.
Limitations
First, data included ad expenditures for media outlets with which Vivvix had contracts and did not include point-of-sale, direct-mail or social media advertising. Second, we found that radio ads were the most commonly purchased media type, though expenditures for radio ads fell second to TV. ONP ad trends may differ when using ad occurrences versus expenditures as the outcome measure, and it is unclear whether ad expenditures or occurrences are a better measure for potential consumer impressions. Third, this dataset provides a limited snapshot of ONP ad expenditure trends. Finally, research is needed to determine how ad expenditures for ONPs are reflected in sales over time.
Conclusions
Across TV, radio, print, online display, online video and mobile ad expenditures, ONPs were advertised primarily on TV and radio between 2016 and 2021 and primarily by Velo. Since FDA’s regulatory authority over non-tobacco nicotine products in 2022, Velo’s ad expenditures dropped to $0 and remained $0 through June 2023. Zyn was the highest spending ONP brand in 2023, focusing their expenditures on digital outlets rather than TV/radio like Velo. Continued monitoring of ONP marketing is important to informing FDA of brand-specific marketing strategies, including potential targeted marketing toward populations at increased risk of tobacco use.
Data availability statement
The data underlying this article were provided by Vivvix (formerly Numerator Ad Intel) under license. Data will be shared on request to the corresponding author with permission from Vivvix.
Ethics statements
Patient consent for publication
Ethics approval
Not applicable.
References
Supplementary materials
Supplementary Data
This web only file has been produced by the BMJ Publishing Group from an electronic file supplied by the author(s) and has not been edited for content.
Footnotes
Contributors JO and CS obtained data and conceptualised the study. JO conducted formal analyses and wrote the original draft. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.
Funding This study is a cross-institution collaborative project from the Marketing Influences SIG supported, in part, by the Center for Coordination of Analytics, Science, Enhancement and Logistics (CASEL) in Tobacco Regulatory Science (U54DA046060) (National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Food and Drug Administration‟s Center for Tobacco Products (FDA CTP)). Additional support was provided by U54CA229973 (author MH), U54HL147127 (author PL), U54DA036151 (author AS) and R01DA054993 (author AS).
Disclaimer The content of this presentation/paper is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the coauthors' institutions, the NIH or the FDA.
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.