CDC Believes E-Cigarette Ads Are Successfully Convincing Teens
Just when consumers are slowly ridding themselves of traditional cigarettes, the biggest tobacco companies in the United States found a way to salvage their businesses. A majority of them are now manufacturing e-cigarettes – products which were thought to be a lot safer and healthier for consumption compared to the old way of smoking. But the problem is, according to a new study and reported CDC, the new generation of teens today are getting easily convinced by advertisements of these e-cigarettes online.
Most of these products are powered by a battery and features a heating element, intended to process liquid nicotine and turn it to vapor that the user will inhale. They don't produce smoke but still contains nicotine and other harmful substances.
In the study, researchers wanted to figure out which ad formats were the most convincing to teenagers, and in order to do that, they had to examine data from a nationwide survey of more or less 20,000 students in middle school and high school. The respondents were aged 12 to 18.
Per report from Reuters, middle school kids and teens were more likely to use the devices (three times) if they routinely see e-cigarette advertisements while surfing the web. For high school respondents meanwhile, those who consistently see those ads are twice more likely to be using e-cigarettes.
According to the lead study author, Dr. Tushar Singh of the Office on Smoking and Health (CDC), the advertisements for e-cigarettes are literally the same ones in terms of theme and concept previously used in selling tobacco products. He said that they usually involve independence, sex, and rebellion, all of which are clearly appealing for young individuals.
Even though there are millions of proponents of e-cigarettes, claiming that they are a lot better as an alternative, it is still quite alarming to know that the number of teens using them has now reached three million, based on a recent CDC survey.
