How Facebook is used to promote ENDS products near four Big 10 universities: A qualitative analysis

Abstract

Objective: 

Electronic Nicotine Delivery System (ENDS) proprietors strategically placed near college campuses and pervasive marketing on social media platforms, such as Facebook, are critical to the tobacco industry’s effort to acquire new young adult users. Understanding the themes used on Facebook to promote ENDS products to college students is necessary to develop public health messaging to combat the vaping epidemic.

Methods: 

We identified 15 ENDS proprietors located near four Big 10 universities and qualitatively analyzed a random sample of their Facebook posts (n = 405) to identify emerging themes using a grounded theory approach.

Results: 

ENDS proprietors in college towns use Facebook to deploy promotional messaging (n = 319), to market ENDS products as a means of celebration (n = 40), to establish a sense of community (n = 155) among ENDS users, to make marijuana references (n = 36), and to advocate (n = 27) for ENDS products.

Conclusions: 

These themes may increase social acceptability and use of ENDS products among college students.

Keywords:

• College/university
• ENDS
• marketing
• qualitative
• social media

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr. Roger Anderson and the Penn State Tobacco Center for Regulatory Science (TCORS) for their support of this work, as well as Dr. Marianne Hillemeier for her intellectual contributions to the conceptualization of this work. Lastly, the authors thank Carly Cherwony for assistance analyzing the data.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, and was exempt from requiring IRB approval from Penn State University where the research was conducted.

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under Award Number T32AG000221. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH. The authors would also like to acknowledge financial support from the Penn State Tobacco Center for Regulatory Science (TCORS) (1P50DAO 36107-01).