thumb|upright=1.35|alt=Chart that displays the number and the types of bans on tobacco direct advertising in WHO's member countries in 2022. |Bans on tobacco direct advertising in WHO's member countries in 2022
Nicotine marketing is the marketing of nicotine-containing products or use. Traditionally, the tobacco industry markets cigarette smoking, but it is increasingly marketing other products, such as electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products. Products are marketed through social media, stealth marketing, mass media, and sponsorship (particularly of sporting events). Expenditures on nicotine marketing are in the tens of billions a year; in the US alone, spending was over US$1 million per hour in 2016; in 2003, per-capita marketing spending was $290 per adult smoker, or $45 per inhabitant. Nicotine marketing is increasingly regulated; some forms of nicotine advertising are banned in many countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a complete tobacco advertising ban.
Effects
thumb|In Indonesia, [[Cigarette advertising in Indonesia|cigarette advertisements are still allowed.]]
The effectiveness of tobacco marketing in increasing consumption of tobacco products is widely documented. Advertisements cause new people to become addicted, mostly when they are minors.
Marketing is also used to oppose regulation of nicotine marketing and other tobacco control measures, both directly and indirectly. For example, by improving the image of the nicotine industry and reducing criticism from youth and community groups. Industry charity and sports sponsorships are publicized (with publicity costing up to ten times the cost of the publicized act), portraying the industry as actively sharing the values of the target audience. Marketing is also used to normalize the industry ("Just Another Fortune 500 Company", "More Than a Tobacco Company").
Regulation and evasion techniques
thumb|Tobacco distributor in [[Belgium after the introduction of plain packaging (April 2020)]]
Because it harms public health, nicotine marketing is increasingly regulated.
Advertising restrictions typically shift marketing spending to unrestricted media. Banned on television, ads move to print; banned in all conventional media, ads shift to sponsorships; banned as in-store advertising and packaging, advertising shifts to shill (undisclosed) marketing reps, sponsored online content, viral marketing, and other stealth marketing techniques.
Methods
thumb|alt=Ad showing a young, carefully made-up, dark-skinned model leaning forwards, looking upwards and delicately touching her extended throat; she is nearly exactly in profile, in silhouette on a bright red ground, with the light catching only her face, throat, fingers, and a single clear stone in her earlobe. Her hair seems very closely cropped. A subtle white overlaid text reads "NEVER let the goody two shoes get you down" and, in a much larger shadowed yellow hand-written-looking font, "Find your voice"|One of the Find Your Voice ads used by Virginia Slims in 1999 that drew attention due to its rebellious advertising aimed at women. Its tagline reads "NEVER let the goody two shoes get you down". making use of [[reactance (psychology)|reactance; it had also been described as urging smokers to disregard health warnings. The 1999–2000 "Find your voice" ad campaign, of which this ad was a part, was criticized as offensive to smokers who have lost their voices to throat cancer, and as targeting minority women and seeking to associate itself with empowerment, independence, self-expression, women's rights, and sexual allure.
Rebellion
Nicotine marketing makes extensive use of reactance, the feeling that one is being unreasonably controlled. Reactance often motivates rebellion, in behavior or belief, which demonstrates that the control was ineffective, restoring the feeling of freedom.
Ads thus rarely explicitly tell the viewer to use nicotine; this has been shown to be counter-productive. Instead, they frequently suggest using nicotine as a way to rebel and be free. nicotine companies now spend tens of millions per year on online marketing.
Counter-advertising also shows awareness of reactance; it rarely tells the viewer what to do. More commonly, it cites statistics about addictiveness and other health effects. Some anti-smoking ads dramatise the statistics (e.g. by piling 1200 body bags in front of the New York headquarters of Philip Morris, now Altria, to illustrate the number of people dying daily from smoking); others document individual experiences. Providing information does not generally provoke reactance.
Social conformity
thumb|Advertisement featuring baseball player [[Joe DiMaggio in 1941]]
Despite products being marketed as individualistic and non-conformist, people generally actually start smoking due to peer pressure. Being offered a cigarette is one of the largest risk factors for smoking. are hired to offer samples of the product.
Ads also use the threat of social isolation, implied or explicit (e.g. "Nobody likes a quitter"). Great care is taken to maintain the impression that a brand is popular and growing in popularity, and that people who smoke the brand are popular. smoking causes impotence, many smokers feel socially stigmatized for smoking,
Mood changes
Nicotine is also advertised as good for "nerves", irritability, and stress. Again, ads have moved from explicit claims ("Never gets on your nerves") to implicit claims ("Slow down. Pleasure up"). Although nicotine products temporarily relieve nicotine withdrawal symptoms, an addiction causes worse stress and mood, due to mild withdrawal symptoms between hits. Nicotine addicts need the nicotine to temporarily feel normal. Nicotine addiction seems to worsen mental health problems,
It is thought that nicotine withdrawal is worse for those who are already stressed or depressed, making quitting more difficult. Smoking rates in the U.S. military were also high, and over a third started smoking after entering the military; deployment was also a risk factor. Disabled people are more likely to smoke; smoking causes disability, but the stress of disability might also cause smoking.
According to the CDC Tobacco Product Use Among Adults 2015 report, people who are American Indian/Alaska Native, non-Hispanic, less-educated (0–12 years education; no diploma, or General Educational Development), lower-income (annual household income less than $35,000), the uninsured, and those under serious psychological distress have the highest reported percentage of any tobacco product use.
Poorer people also smoke more. When marketing cigarettes to the developing world, tobacco companies associate their product with an affluent Western lifestyle. However, in the developed world, smoking has almost vanished among the affluent. Smoking rates among the American poor are much higher than among the rich, with rates of over 40% for those with the equivalent of a US high school diploma. These differences have been attributed to both lack of healthcare and to selective marketing to socio-economic, racial, and sexual minorities. The tobacco industry targeted young rural men by creating advertisements with images of cowboys, hunters, and race car drivers. Teens in rural areas are less likely to be exposed to anti-tobacco messages in the media. Low-income and predominantly minority neighborhoods often have more tobacco retailers and more tobacco advertising than other neighborhoods.
The tobacco industry focuses marketing towards vulnerable groups, contributing to the large disparity in smoking and health problems. The tobacco industry has marketed heavily to African Americans, and even the homeless and the mentally ill. In 1995, Project SCUM, which targeted sexual and racial minorities and homeless people in San Francisco, was planned by R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (a British American Tobacco subsidiary).
Tobacco companies have often been progressive in their hiring policies, employing women and people of colour when this was controversial. They also donate some of their profits to a variety of organizations that help people in need. Indeed, the addictiveness of nicotine was explicitly denied into the nineties; in 1994, seven tobacco executives stated that nicotine was not addictive while on oath before the US Congress. Products may become popular on the basis of false health claims before the research is done that proves them false. Reduced levels of specific harmful chemicals are often advertised; people tend to wrongly interpret these as claims of reduced harm.
"Mild" and "roasted" cigarettes
In the 1920s to 1950s, ads often focused on throat irritation and coughs, claiming that specific brands were better. This also distracted from the more serious harms of smoking, Claims were made that toasting tobacco removed irritants (which were said to have been sold on to chemical companies).
Menthol cigarettes
Menthol cigarettes have also been marketed as healthier from the 1930s onwards. They were even inaccurately advertised as medicinal, a treatment for smokers that would soothe a throat irritated by smoking, or as a treatment for a cold. Where this is illegal, they are marketed as healthier by implication, using words like "mild", "natural", "gentle", "calm", "soft", "smooth", and imagery of healthy natural environments.
Filter cigarettes
In the 1950s, filters were added to cigarettes, and heavily marketed, until they faced regulatory action as false advertising.
Ventilated ("light") cigarettes
Ventilated cigarettes (marketed as "light", "low-tar", "low-nicotine" etc.) do feel cooler, airier, and less harsh, and a smoking machine will give lower tar and nicotine readings for them. But they do not actually reduce human intake or health risks, as a human responds to the lower resistance to breathing through them by taking bigger puffs. They were introduced in the 1970s, responding to regulation requiring that nicotine and tar yields be included in cigarette ads. Light cigarettes became so popular that, as of 2004, half of American smokers preferred them over regular cigarettes. According to the US federal government's National Cancer Institute (NCI), light cigarettes provide no benefit to smokers' health. However, people using "light" cigarettes are less likely to quit.
Heated tobacco products
Heated tobacco products, presented as heat-not-burn products, are marketed as less harmful than regular cigarettes since 1988. There is no reliable evidence that these products are any less harmful than regular cigarettes. A reduced harm from using these products has not been proven. These products do generate smoke. Companies are using similar strategies and channels as previously used for traditional cigarettes.
Electronic cigarettes
A 2014 review said, "the e-cigarette companies have been rapidly expanding using aggressive marketing messages similar to those used to promote cigarettes in the 1950s and 1960s." Common marketing messages on brand websites, claiming that e-cigarettes are safe and healthy, have been described as "concerning". It is commonly claimed that e-cigarettes emit merely "harmless water vapor", which is not the case. E-cigarette e-liquids marketed as "nicotine-free" have been found to contain nicotine.