Big tobacco follows new smokers into e-cigarettes using youth-targeted marketing

Evidence

With the growing popularity and soaring sales of e-cigarettes among young people, the major tobacco firms are entering the e-cigarette business with their own brands or acquiring small independent ones. The companies are well armed with proven marketing methods. These include targeting youngsters by sponsoring youth-oriented music and sports events where free e-cigarette samples are offered and advertising campaigns that feature celebrities (Elliot, 2013; Tavernise, 2013a). In addition, the firms run radio and television ads that glamorize e-cigarettes on youth-oriented programs. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1736

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the book’s thesis — corporate moral disengagement lets tobacco firms re-enter the youth market they abandoned as scandalous, now reframed as harm-reduction technology.