Vaping – effectiveness of advertising restrictions and role of advertising and free distribution in uptake

Key findings

The sources examined for this briefing:

• highlighted a lack of evidence on the direct impacts of marketing restrictions on vaping uptake, both due to adoption of these policies in few countries and the challenges in assessing their effectiveness;
• identified unintended consequences of non-comprehensive bans on advertising, such as increased exposure to adverts via unregulated channels;
• have consistently found an association between exposure to advertising and susceptibility/intention to try vaping;
• showed how adolescents not only notice e-cigarette marketing more than adults, but their critical reasoning is not fully developed to protect them against the impact of advertising;
• concluded that advertisement of vaping products contributes to a reduced perception of absolute and relative harm from vaping;
• concluded that advertisement of vaping (especially through social media) increases appeal of products and willingness to try, especially among young people;
• show that coupons/price promotions and free distribution of vaping products may encourage those who have never used them before to try them, current users to continue using them and ex-users to return to use them.