Thursday, June 5, 2014

E-Cigarette TV Ads: Adults’ Exposure Much Higher Than Kids’


The June 2nd edition of the journal Pediatrics features a study of e-cigarette advertising on television from 2011 to 2013 (here).  The research, led by Jennifer Duke of RTI International in North Carolina, found that exposure among youth (12-17 years old) to television ads for e-cigs increased about 2.5 fold, or 256% as reported by Dr. Duke. 

The author casts the industry as villain: “It appears that youth are being exposed to a sustained level of marketing about the benefits of e-cigarettes.” (here).  ABC TV was less subtle: “E-Cigarette TV Ads Target Kids.” (here).

In fact, the results in Figure 1 of the study (left), which were not fully described by the authors, show that the advertisements’ effects were mainly on adults.

The authors report exposure to e-cig ads in terms of target rating points (TRPs), a standard unit of measurement for the proportion of people exposed to an ad and its frequency. 

Duke and colleagues report that exposure of 12-17-year-olds to e-cig advertising peaked in 2nd quarter 2013 at 347 TRPs.  Young adults (18-24 years), for whom purchase of e-cigarettes is legal almost everywhere, had peak exposure of 611 TRPs in 2013, indicating much higher exposure than youth. 

The authors fail to note that older adults had far higher peak levels of exposure to e-cig ads.  My table contains the estimated peak TRPs for each age group in Figure 1.



Peak Exposure to E-cigarette Television Advertising (TRPs) By Age Groups in 2nd Quarter 2013
Age Group (years)Population (millions)Peak Exposure (TRPs)
12-1724347
18-24 30611
55-3441611
35-5486820
55+77850



This data shows that 234 million adults 18 years or older were the primary recipients of e-cigarette advertising. 

No comments: