Get ready to hear more about electronic cigarettes except about how they can possibly help people quit smoking. Some e-cig manufacturers are gearing up for an expensive ad campaign, the New York Times reports. Scottsdale, Ariz.-based NJoy Inc. is spending $12 to $14 million to promote its NJoy King, while Lorillard s BlueCigs has hired actor Stephen Dorff to promote their product. There have even been ads on cable stations, although no network has agreed to run the spots.
But all the ads promote the e-cigarette as hip and enjoyable Njoy is using the hit song by Foreigner, Feels Like the First Time, in its commercials. There s no discussion of using e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation aid in the ads, which had commenters on the popular Manhattan gossip blog Gawker a bit confused.
I'm sure this isn't the makers intent, but these e-cigs really should be geared more as a stop smoking aid than as a replacement for cigarettes, wroteone commenter. I know three people who switched to e-cigs and now have stopped smoking altogether without even realizing it. That's who e-cigs should be marketed toward.
ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross explains that e-cigarette manufacturers are hamstrung by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009, which gave the Food and Drug Administration regulatory authority over tobacco products, including at this time e-cigarettes. This law forbids companies from marketing products as smoking cessation aids without conducting expensive clinical trials. The law is a terrible law, he says, but the ad campaigns show that the marketers perceive that smokers know about e-cigarettes even without being told that they help smokers quit. He s glad that e-cigarettes are gaining popularity, since there s every indication that vaping is far less hazardous than smoking cigarettes.
