Is Juul Targeting You?

• Author: Bubar, Joe
• Position: NATIONAL

It's as small as a flash drive but has as much nicotine as a pack of cigarettes. Did the company behind the popular electronic cigarette intentionally market its product to teens? BY JOE BUBAR

When Brennan McDermott was a student at Simsbury High School in Connecticut, he found himself in a situation that seemed right out of a teen movie: "A couple of my buddies were like, 'Hey, let's go to the bathroom,"' says McDermott, who graduated last year. "I was like, 'Whoa, what's going on here?' I got kind of uncomfortable with it. They were all passing it around. I didn't take it."

The "it" that McDermott was offered was a small, rectangular electronic cigarette, or vape, called the Juul.

The Juul and other e-cigarettes have become increasingly common in high schools across the country. About 20 percent of high school students have tried vaping in the past 30 days, according to preliminary federal data--an increase from about 12 percent a year ago (see graph, facing page). And the Juul is by far the most popular brand, accounting for nearly three-quarters of e-cigarette sales, according to Nielsen, a global information and data company.

Many teens say they're drawn to the Juul because of its different flavored liquids, such as cucumber, mint, fruit, and mango. Plus, the device's sleek design (it resembles a flash drive) makes it easy to conceal from teachers and parents.

The F.D.A. (Food and Drug Administration) has called the spread of teen vaping an epidemic. And now the government agency says it's investigating whether the company Juul Labs intentionally marketed its product to youth, which is illegal. The F.D.A. raided Juul Labs' headquarters in San Francisco in late September, seizing more than a thousand pages of documents to evaluate Juul's sales and marketing practices.

The agency also announced a plan last month to restrict the sale of most e-cigarette flavors to stores that prevent minors from entering or have a section that's closed off to minors.

Getting Teens Hooked?

Marketing cigarettes to teens is nothing new. Tobacco companies used to openly advertise their products to young people. By the early 1900s, some cigarette packs included baseball cards, and in the '40s and '50s, tobacco ads often featured actors and athletes--even Santa Claus and doctors--happily puffing away (see "A History of Cigarette Ads, "p. 14).

"The tobacco industry has long known that in order to get smokers in the future to be lifelong customers, they have to start them in the teen years," says Dr. Robert Jackler, an ear, nose, and throat specialist at Stanford University who heads a group studying tobacco advertising. "So the tobacco industry uses many devices to attract young kids. They use images and slogans that suggest that if you smoke, you'll be socially popular."

Jackler and others argue that Juul targeted teens the same way--but brought these marketing techniques into the 21st century. They point out that the Juul's original 2015 ad campaign featured attractive, young-looking models and colorful designs (see "Glamorizing Addiction," above).

And many of these ads were posted on Instagram and Twitter, with hashtags like #juulvapor, #juulmoment, and #juulnation that attracted young people and allowed them to post using the same hashtags.

The ads seem to have done the job. An October study by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine found that almost a quarter of Juul's Twitter followers are under 18.

A former senior manager at Juul told The New York Times that although the ad campaign wasn't specifically targeted at teens, he and others in the company were well aware it could appeal to them.

Juul's critics also note that the vape's sweet flavors increase its appeal to teens.

"Young people say that flavors are the top reason they try e-cigarettes," says Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin, a professor of psychiatry at Yale University who has studied vaping. Experts say teens are also drawn to the Juul "skins" or "wraps" sold by other companies, which sport colorful designs, cartoon characters, and popular fashion brand labels like Supreme and Adidas.

Juul Labs denies that it ever sought to hook teens. The company says its mission since its founding in 2015 has been to get people who are addicted...