UK: Vype E-cigarette Ad Campaign Banned

Source from:  The Guardian  06/12/2014

Advertising Standards Authority rules that claim of 'pure satisfaction for smokers' may be taken as a way to stop smoking.

A press campaign promoting e-cigarettes as "pure satisfaction" for smokers has been banned, as the advertising watchdog looks to crack down on a new wave of tobacco marketing.

E-cigarette brand Vype ran a ad campaign featuring a man and woman who become enveloped and then pass through a barrier of smoke.

A voiceover with the ad calls the Vype experience "pure satisfaction" and calls on smokers to "experience the breakthrough."

The Advertising Standards Authority – which in March launched an investigation into e-cigarette advertising, in part due to health campaigners questioning whether they indirectly promote smoking – received 15 complaints about the campaign.

Some complainants believed that the ad promoted e-cigarettes as a way to stop smoking.

Vype said there are potentially significant public-health benefits if smokers could be persuaded to switch to e-cigarettes.

The company said the product was positioned as an alternative, not a way to stop smoking.

"An average consumer would recognise the Vype ads as representing a product, or alternative product, intended for nicotine users, rather than as a licensed smoking cessation device," the company said.

However the ASA said the claims – "pure satisfaction for smokers" and "experience the breakthrough" – were likely to be interpreted as meaning smokers could achieve satisfaction from e-cigarettes instead of cigarettes.

"A breakthrough alternative as a substitute for tobacco," the ASA said. "In this context, the product was likely to be understood as a smoking cessation aid."

The battle over e-cigarette advertising as a grey market for big tobacco companies is hotting up.

An ad for e-cigarette brand VIP, which used sex to promote smoking, was the most complained about ad campaign in 2013.

E-cigarette advertising has only been allowed on TV since January 2013. Enditem