Objective Facts or Misleading Hype? Associations between Features of E-Cigarette Marketing and Sales on a Chinese E-Commerce Platform

Abstract

Background: Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) have been increasingly advertised and marketed in China in recent years. This study examined the practice and impact of e-cigarette online marketing on a major retail website—Tmall.com. Methods: Data were obtained by crawling 449 online pages of e-cigarette marketing. Content analysis was conducted to summarize the marketing practices for four types of e-cigarettes, and multilevel modeling (MLM) was implemented to explore factors predictive of the online sales of the products. Results: The sales volume of e-cigarettes ranged from 0 to 28,169, with the price per item varying from RMB 218.1 ($31.84) to RMB 385.5 ($56.29). Fruit (44.3%, n = 199), mint (33%, n = 148) and cream/sugar/ice (29.4%, n = 132) were the three flavors most often listed for sale online. Moreover, 63.4% (n = 285) of e-cigarette ads emphasized the role of the products as an aid to quit smoking. Nice taste (75.1%), big vapor (65.7%), high capacity batteries (67.9%), fashionable models (61.3%), discounted price (49.7%), and suitability for gifting (45.9%) were the most frequently touted product features in online ads. Type of e-cigarettes, diversity of products, number of online comments, and location of manufacturers were significantly associated with sales volume. Conclusions: Online marketing of e-cigarettes was common on one of China’s leading e-commerce websites. Sellers employed advertising strategies targeting a wide range of potential consumers—from youth to the elderly. Stricter regulations of online marketing for e-cigarettes should be enforced in China.

Will personality traits affect the use of e-cigar among college students? A cross-sectional study in Guangdong Province, China

“…Extraverts are considered to be more sociable. Chen et al (1) found that e-cigarette sales advertisements in China mentioned that e-cigarette had social benefits such as promoting family harmony and establishing interpersonal relationships. Some studies have shown that smokers had higher extraversion scores than non-smokers (30,31).…”

“…In addition, e-cigar in China is mainly sold to adolescents and young adults, so the online publicity platform has become the main point of sale. However, many e-cigar advertisements gave the wrong message, such as no nicotine, no addiction, can effectively help quit smoking, and arouse strong curiosity among college students (1).…”

“…China has the largest number of traditional smokers in the world. With the vigorous promotion of electronic cigarette (e-cigar) manufacturers, the production and consumption of ecigar has shown a trend of rapid growth in the past few years (1). The number of employees of e-cigar in China exceeded 2 million, with annual sales exceeding 33.7 billion yuan and exports approaching 30 billion yuan in 2018 (2).…”

“…Moreover, in order to attract teenagers and young adults to accept e-cigar, manufacturers adopt fashionable designs, good user experiences (for example, reducing irritation to the throat), different tastes (for example, fruit, mint and traditional cigarettes, etc.) and can be used in places where smoking is prohibited (1,6,7). These "advantages" that lead to the increasing popularity of e-cigar among college students year by year.…”

“…Compared with the elderly, the youth are more likely to accept and use e-cigarettes out of curiosity. The use of e-cigarettes may thought to be cooler and more fashionable, which is one of the important reasons why they use e-cigar (1,15). Similar to those who use conventional cigarettes, most of the e-cigar users are male (16).…”