Youth say ads for flavored e-liquids are for them

Introduction:
This text summarizes a study examining adolescents' and young adults' opinions on the target age group of ads for flavored e-liquids. The study aimed to understand whether and which flavors youth perceive as meant for their age group(s) to inform FDA regulation of e-liquid flavors and associated advertisements.

Key Points:

* The study surveyed a random sample of 255 California youth (mean age = 17.5, 62.4% female) (Roditis et al., 2016; Gorukanti et al., 2016).
* Participants viewed eight ads for fruit-, dessert-, alcohol-, and coffee-flavored e-liquids and indicated the age group they thought the ads targeted (younger, same age, a little older, or much older).
* Most participants (93.7%) indicated the cupcake man flavor ad targeted an audience of people younger than them, while over half felt ads for smoothy (68.2%), cherry (63.9%), vanilla cupcake (58%), and caramel capuccino (50.4%) targeted their age.
* For none of the flavor ads did a majority of participants believe the target age group was much older.
* Participants predominately identified ads as targeting individuals just a little older than themselves or their own age.
* The study found that the cupcake man flavor ad was the most likely to be perceived as targeting younger people, while appletini, kona coffee, and beer ads were most likely to be perceived as targeting those much older.
* The results suggest that participants perceived dramatic differences in target-age by flavor and that the order the flavor ads were displayed influenced their perceptions.

Main Message:
The study highlights the importance of understanding youth perceptions of ads for flavored e-liquids in informing FDA regulation. The findings contradict industry-sponsored claims that marketing of flavored e-liquids is not meant for and does not target youth. Instead, the results show that AYA perceive flavored e-liquid ads to be targeting people their age or those a little older, and in fact at times to be targeting an audience even younger. These findings support the need to regulate flavored e-liquids and associated ads to reduce youth appeal, which ultimately could reduce youth use of e-cigarettes.

McKelvey, Karma, Mike Baiocchi, Divya Ramamurthi, Sheila McLaughlin, and Bonnie Halpern-Felsher. “Youth Say Ads for Flavored E-Liquids Are for Them.” Addictive Behaviors 91 (April 2019): 164–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2018.08.029.