Ecig Advert Banned
New advertising guidelines leading to confusion over how vape should be portrayed.
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by Dave Cross
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Unfortunately for the picture editor of the Daily Mail the news does not appertain to VIP, it refers to a bus shelter poster campaign by VIP rivals Neo e-cigarettes.
ASA have banned the advert for indirectly promoting tobacco smoking despite the new rules allowing devices to be shown in use. The rules came into effect this week allowing electronic cigarettes to be shown but campaigns are banned from linking with tobacco products or appealing to teenagers.
Ads must not encourage non-smokers to use e-cigarettes, must make clear that the product is an e-cigarette and not a tobacco product and must not contain anything that could be associated in the audience's mind with a tobacco brand
The poster for Neo e-cigarettes featured an image of a woman using the device and blowing vapour into a man's face with the headline: “Smoking, redefined.”
ASA received a grand total of 23 complaints. The complainants claimed that the advert was not clear that the product was an e-cigarette rather than a tobacco product and was especially misleading for children.
Neo e-cigarettes said the word “e-cigarette” featured in their product logo and the advert did not include the words “tobacco” or “cigarette”.
They went on to point out that it demonstrated a woman using a Neo cigalike. It had been removed from its packaging, was long & black and not glowing like a cigarette while in use. They pointed out the obvious “stark contrast” to analogue cigarettes that are universally white, shorter in length and aflame or smouldering while in use.
Comparing the male featured in the advert to one who would be otherwise suffering was “not visibly perturbed by the vapour in the way a person would be bothered by tobacco smoke.”
The Advertising Standards Authority statement says:“... therefore, irrespective of whether consumers recognised that the product was an e-cigarette, because the ad adopted imagery associated with tobacco smoking and presented it in a glamorous and aspirational way, we considered that it indirectly promoted tobacco smoking. Because we considered the ad did not make sufficiently clear that the product was an e-cigarette and, by appropriating the imagery of tobacco smoking and presenting it in a positive light, indirectly promoted tobacco smoking, we concluded that it was irresponsible.”
ASA made its decision based on appearances and poses the question of how a vape cloud could be shown in order to differentiate it from smoke? Despite the regulations now allowing vaping products to be depicted in use they considered that vape cloud would be considered by most people to be smoke being blown into a man's face.
“We told (them) to ensure that they made clear that they were marketing e-cigarettes in future, and to not indirectly promote tobacco smoking in future”, the statement continued.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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