A new generation of misleading tobacco marketing: Assessing the evolution of misleading combustible tobacco marketing features and detrimental implications for vulnerable youth and young adults

Project Summary/Abstract The purpose of this research is to assess the use and effects of a new generation of misleading descriptors and imagery in combustible tobacco marketing. While regulatory efforts to date have made strides in restricting the use of especially misleading terms in tobacco marketing (e.g., “mild”, “natural”), industry marketing has

evolved to utilize newer descriptors and imagery that are known to be associated with these restricted terms; yet, research studying this evolution is quite limited. As the tobacco industry continues to mislead consumers

with attempts to skirt regulatory actions via implied reduced risk claims (e.g., “organic”, “tobacco and water”), it is crucial to track their misleading marketing tactics and monitor effects on vulnerable youth and young adults (YYAs), especially as this suggestive marketing for traditional tobacco products now exists alongside other

products actually authorized for designation as modified risk (i.e., Modified Risk Tobacco Products, or MRTPs). Through a preliminary literature and marketing content review under Aim 1, this research will characterize newer descriptors and imagery utilized in misleading marketing for combustible tobacco products (because

these products pose the greatest harms), focusing specifically on cigarettes and cigarillos. Aim 1 focus groups with YYAs will assess attention, product appeal, and risk perceptions for products advertised/packaged with these descriptors and imagery, as well as other products by the same brands and MRTPs. Results will inform a

discrete choice experiment (DCE) (Aim 2) that manipulates a series of target descriptors and images as well as modified risk claims on cigarette and cigarillo packs, in order to isolate independent and joint effects of the target features on product appeal and preferences. Under Aim 3, an eye-tracking study will examine young

people’s attention to ads and packs using salient descriptors and images (per focus group and DCE results), and in combination with the prior activities, will provide preliminary data to inform research avenues for future regulatory efforts. This K01 will support the pursuit of my long-term career goal of becoming an independent

tobacco control researcher at the intersection of tobacco policy, health communication, and tobacco misbeliefs; it will develop my content expertise (i.e., trends in/effects of cigarette and cigarillo marketing) and cultivate new methodological skillsets (i.e., focus groups, DCE, eye-tracking). The proposed research will allow me to work

towards research independence and an R01 grant to further study misleading tobacco marketing, with a new focus on additional products and an emphasis on regulatory remedy.