Removing flavors reduces point-of-sale advertising

A study[1] analyzed bans on the sale of flavored tobacco and vaping products and the consequences for their availability and advertising at retailers in several California cities between 2015 and 2020. The researchers found that city bans on flavored product sales led to significant reductions in their availability and also in point-of-sale advertising of these products.

For this study, researchers visited tobacco retailers in Alameda and San Francisco counties, California, in 2015 to collect data that fit with a standardized tobacco retail assessment protocol. Researchers conducted the same assessment in 2019-2020 after some cities in both counties adopted policies restricting the sale of flavored tobacco products and e-cigarettes. Researchers also studied the impact of these bans on point-of-sale advertising.

The flavor ban has reduced the availability of flavored products

Comprehensive legislation, i.e. legislation that bans flavourings for all tobacco and nicotine products, including menthol, reduces the availability of these products in retail outlets and, in doing so, removes a gateway to the consumption of these products. It helps to reduce the initiation of tobacco use among young people and, subsequently, the transfer of consumption to other products.

Overall, the availability of flavored products declined by more than 90% in cities with complete restrictions on the sale of flavored products and by more than 60% in cities with partially restrictive policies, compared with 13% in cities with no policies at the time of the surveys. The decline in the availability of flavored products even in cities with no policies may be explained, the researchers suggest, by anticipation of legislation in this area or by spillover effects from ban policies in neighboring cities. For example, the city of Newark, which had no policy, is surrounded by Fremont, which has a complete policy banning flavors for these products.

A reduction in advertising associated with these products in points of sale

Comprehensive legislation banning the sale of flavoured tobacco and e-cigarette products also helps reduce advertising at points of sale. Flavours are an important marketing vector and the elimination of the sale of these flavoured products has direct consequences on the scale of advertising deployed at points of sale affected by this ban.

Thus, as an illustration, advertisements displayed outside the points of sale in favor of traditional menthol cigarettes were present in 40% of the establishments in 2015, before the ban came into force. In 2020, only 6.4% of the establishments still presented these advertisements. The researchers made the same observation regarding advertisements in favor of flavored cigarillos: nearly 26% of the establishments had such advertisements outside the point of sale in 2015 compared to 9.7% in 2020.

Regarding advertisements inside the point of sale, more than 6 out of 10 establishments had advertisements for flavored tobacco products inside in 2015 compared to 40% in 2020. Regarding advertisements for flavored vaping products, 40% of establishments had them in 2015 compared to 20% in 2020 after the bans. Even if this decrease appears smaller, the evolution must be made with the cities where no regulation has intervened in this area. There has been a general increase in advertising for flavored products between 2015 and 2020. Nearly 8 out of 10 establishments had advertisements for flavored tobacco products in 2020 compared to 50% in 2015 and 42% had advertisements for flavored vaping in 2020 compared to 36% in 2015.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced in April 2021 that it would ban menthol cigarettes and all cigarette flavors nationwide. However, federal bans could take years to implement and do not include menthol-flavored vaping products. To fill gaps in federal law, states and local jurisdictions continue to pass laws regulating the sales of flavored nicotine products, both tobacco and vaping products. As of 2021, eight states, 325 localities, and five Indigenous nations have passed such laws banning sales of flavored products.

Keywords: United States, California, flavor ban, tobacco, menthol, vaping, advertising

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[1] Holmes LM, Lempert LK, Ling PM. Flavored Tobacco Sales Restrictions Reduce Tobacco Product Availability and Retailer Advertising. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022; 19(6):3455. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19063455