When its product was launched in 2015, e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc. promoted its products on the teen-oriented websites of Nickelodeon Magazine, Cartoon Network, and Seventeen. A complaint was filed on February 12 by the Massachusetts Attorney General's office. The facts established by an investigation lasting more than a year contradict Juul executives' repeated claims that the company never intentionally targeted teenagers. This claim came even after the manufacturer's products became extremely popular among high school students in recent years, cornering the U.S. vaping market.<\/p>\n
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who filed the lawsuit, said the company worked with online advertising professionals to buy space on websites. "very attractive to children, middle and high school teenagers and underage students,"<\/em> including educational websites such as coolmath-games.com and socialstudiesforkids.com.<\/p>\n The attorney general's office said the ad buys began in June 2015, when the product was launched, and continued into 2016. The office also said Juul had the ability to exclude certain websites, a sort of "blacklist" where the company prohibited itself from promoting its products. That was not its choice.<\/p>\n In addition to the online ads, evidence from the investigation suggests that Juul hired a communications agency before launching its product. The agency reportedly proposed an advertising campaign presenting the company as a "technology goods company." The sales pitch promoted: the Juul e-cigarette was "better than traditional cigarettes." The strategy was to contrast the Juul vaping device with items such as boom boxes or retro cell phones, familiar to adults but outdated to younger people, with the slogan "Everything changes, eventually.<\/em><\/p>\n