Juul’s New Marketing Is Straight Out of Big Tobacco’s Playbook -The Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/06/juul-big-tobacco-marketing/592174/ The e-cigarette giant is relying on some awfully familiar tactics to distinguish its products. Out of a firestorm of controversy over teen nicotine use, Juul Labs emerged in January with a newly sober and adult marketing identity. Forget the fruit-flavored vaping pods, the colorful ads populated with young models, the viral Instagram and Facebook posts. What the Silicon Valley e-cigarette giant is really about, its $10 million television ad campaign declares, is helping cigarette smokers shake their cigarette addictions and get healthy. The ads feature mature subjects with their ages clearly stated on screen: “Carolyn, 54,” “Patrick, 47,” “Mimi, 37.” They sit against muted domestic backdrops and say that because of Juul, they’ll never touch a cigarette again after decades of dependency. Juuling, they emphasize, is an “alternative” to smoking. Juul’s website underlines that message: “Our mission,” one page reads in bold white text, is to “improve the lives of the world’s one billion adult smokers by eliminating cigarettes.” In its effort to define its products as a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes, Juul appears to be following a familiar marketing cycle. Throughout the 20th century, as warnings about the health risks of cigarettes arose, tobacco companies repeatedly found new ways to downplay concerns and advertise their products as healthy options. When their claims were refuted by evidence, they traded them out for new claims. E-cigarettes like Juul’s are still a recent invention, and their long-term health effects remain largely unknown. Some evidence shows that vaping can help smokers quit, as Juul’s ads profess, and that it is a safer substitute for people who already smoke. But studies are finding that, like the many tobacco and nicotine products that preceded them, Juuls also come with considerable risks. History seems to be repeating itself.