JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

After the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) restricted characterizing flavors in tobacco products, ‘ice’ hybrid-flavored e-cigarettes, which combine a cooling flavor with fruit or other flavors (e.g., banana ice), have recently emerged on the market. Like menthol, ‘ice’ flavors produce a cooling sensory experience. However, they may not fit into existing flavor profile categories such as characterizing flavors or menthol, limiting regulatory action. Monitoring the public’s conversations about ‘ice’-flavored e-cigarettes on social media may help inform the tobacco control community about these products and contribute to the FDA policy targets in the future.

Objective:

This study documented the themes pertaining to vaping and ‘ice’ flavor-related conversations on Twitter.

Methods:

Posts containing vaping-related (e.g., “vape”, “ecig”, “e-juice”, “e-cigarette”) and ‘ice’-related (i.e., “Cool,” “Frost,” “Arctic”) terms were collected from Twitter’s Streaming Application Programming Interface between January 1, 2021, to July 21, 2021. After removing retweets, we selected a random sample of (n=2001) posts for the content analysis. Themes were developed through an inductive approach. Theme co-occurrence was also examined.

Results:

Posts were often marked as (or consisted of) marketing material (51.9%), contained positive personal testimonials (47.0%), and mentioned disposable pod (19.8%) and CBD products (7.0%). The most common co-occurring themes in a single tweet were related to marketing and disposable pod devices (12.0%).

Conclusions:

Our findings suggest that ‘ice’-flavored e-cigarette products are actively marketed on social media while the messages about them are overwhelmingly positive. Public health education campaigns may help to reduce positive social norms about ‘ice’-flavored products, while banning tobacco marketing posts on social media may limit their promotion to the public.