ArticleTobacco control2022
Industry response to strengthened regulations: amount and themes of flavoured electronic cigarette promotion by product vendors and manufacturers on Instagram.
Article in Tobacco control, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- A multi-platform analysis of e-cigarette online marketing in China (2024-2025).Dialogues in health · 2026Article
- Differential impact of South Korea's 2019 E-cigarette advisory on adult tobacco product use: an interrupted time series analysis by product type and subgroup.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Tobacco control policies discussed on social media: a scoping review.Tobacco control · 2026Article
- Exploring the potential consequences of the disposable vape ban in the UK: A qualitative study with young adults who use disposable vapes.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Cooling the Conversation: Discourse About Menthol and Flavored Tobacco Restrictions on TikTok.Substance use & misuse · 2026Article
- The Impact of Maternal/In Utero Exposure of Novel Tobacco Products on the Offspring Cardiovascular Health.Cardiovascular toxicology · 2025Review
- Scoping of Policy Impacts for Regulating E-cigarettes (SPIRE): findings from a data and decision analytic model mapping project.NIHR open research · 2025Article
- The Scientific Basis for the Regulation of Flavors in Tobacco Products.Annual review of clinical psychology · 2024Review
- Use of a multi-method approach to rapidly assess the impact of public health policies at the state and local level: a case study of flavored e-cigarette policies.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Novel nicotine products: Averting a harmful revolution.Tobacco induced diseases · 2023Article
- Impact of flavour restricting policies on non-cigarette tobacco products.Tobacco control · 2022Article
- Examining influencer compliance with advertising regulations in branded vaping content on Instagram.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSocial media discussion tends to follow news about proposed or enacted government policies. Thus, digital discourse surveillance may be an effective and unobtrusive way of understanding industry and public response to policies and regulations, including in the domain of tobacco control. Recently, the US Food and Drug Administration restricted sales of flavoured cartridge and disposable vape products. Historically, the tobacco industry used modification of product characteristics, labelling or packaging to work around flavour restrictions. We aimed to characterise strategies used by nicotine product manufacturers and vendors to promote flavoured products on Instagram and to identify policy workaround tactics.
methodsKeyword rules were used to collect flavoured electronic cigarette-related Instagram posts from CrowdTangle, from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2021. Posts were coded for commercial content and promotional strategies using a combination of machine learning methods, keyword algorithms and human coding. Additional exploratory analyses were conducted to identify major discussion themes. Non-English posts were excluded from the analyses.
resultsKeyword filters captured 113 393 relevant posts from 391 unique accounts, with 46 076 posts referencing flavour promotion (40.6%) and 2124 (2%) posts mentioning alternatives to restricted flavoured products or strategies to evade flavour sales restrictions. Promotional messages featured non-characterising flavour references, 'off-brand' product substitutes, promotion of new flavoured product technologies, innovation, do-it-yourself appeals, global promotion, international delivery and encouraged flavoured product stockpiling. In addition, promotion of refillable devices, e-juice, tank systems and 'box mod' vaporizers was present.
conclusionSocial media surveillance can enhance our understanding of public health needs and policy compliance, as well as inform strategies to prevent policy evasion. Examining evolving industry tactics to promote flavoured products in response to regulatory changes can help authorities and practitioners assess policy effectiveness and inform future design and implementation approaches.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.