JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Nicotine pouches and lozenges are increasingly available in the US and sales are growing. Many pouch products are produced by tobacco companies, though some claim to contain “tobacco free” nicotine.

Objective:

We examined marketing of five oral nicotine products sold by tobacco companies.

Methods:

Internet, radio, television, print, and online display advertisements between January 2019 and March 2020 for six brands of nicotine pouches and lozenges were identified through commercially available marketing surveillance systems supplemented by manual search of trade press and review of brand websites. A total of 711 ads (122 unique) were analyzed to identify characteristics, themes, marketing strategies, and target audience, and qualitatively compared by brand.

Results:

Six brands of nicotine pouch products spent a total of $11.2 million on advertising in 2019, with most ($10.7 million) spent by the brand Velo, and 86% of the unique ads were online. By ad count, two brands, Velo (57%) and ZYN (42%) dominated; these brands also made the greatest number of advertising claims in general. These claims focused on novelty, modernity, and use in a variety of contexts, including urban contexts, workplace, transportation, and leisure activities. These two brands also included most of the images of people, including women and people of color. Rogue, Revel, Dryft and on! brands focused mainly on product features. All nicotine pouch products made tobacco free, smoke free, spit free, or vape free claims.

Conclusions:

Nicotine pouches and lozenges may expand the nicotine market as tobacco free claims may alleviate concerns about health harms, and advertising features a greater diversity of people and contexts than typical smokeless tobacco advertising. The market leaders and highest spending brands ZYN and Velo included more lifestyle claims. Surveillance of nicotine pouch marketing and uptake is necessary, including influence on tobacco use behaviors.