Did JUUL target Teens?

2015 was a crazy year. Aaron Hernandez had just been thrown in Jail, Manny Pacquiao lost to Floyd Mayweather. Birdman won best picture at the Oscars. Bruce Jenner became Caitlyn. Justin Bieber’s music sort of grew up. And a revolution began in Silicon Valley. Two former Stanford grads created a sleek, almost sexy, new device that can fit in the palm of your hand. The name is even alluring, reflecting wealth and rarity, JUUL. The advertising campaigns have stretched from Miami to Los Angeles to New York, featuring parties, sleepovers, trending hashtags on Instagram and Twitter, celebrity endorsements, Influencer endorsements, a HUGE billboard in Times Square, and absolutely stunning young, hiply dressed models. Wait… this seems like it’d be an advertising strategy for Apple or Samsung, right? Aimed at youth who are their biggest customers. Not an emerging E-Cigarette giant aimed at getting smokers to switch to their product. Did JUUL target teenagers?

Teen vaping, according to the FDA, has reached “near-epidemic levels”, and they’re pointing their fingers at JUUL for enabling it. Nicotine addiction has begun to run rampant in teenagers in the United State. 3.6 Million Middle and High school students vape on average, with JUUL being the most popular. Students across the country are “Juuling” in the bathrooms, Locker rooms, and dressing rooms at their schools. Principals are on edge. Nurses are concerned. And, honestly, no matter how booksmart they are, teachers have NO idea how to stop it. Principals have resorted to taking the doors off the bathrooms, installing detectors, and just watching in the bathrooms to keep them from vaping. But how did this all start?

It all started in the year of our Lord, 2015, when JUUL was introduced to the masses. Their first campaign was… shady, to say the least. The campaign, dubbed, “Vaporized”, used vast social media promotion, parties, and… a sleepover?  The first event was in New York, it was basically a MASSIVE party with about three bands. Then came LA… Oh, California, how JUUL came to play on the West Coast, sponsoring about 15 music and film festivals, whose main attendees are 17-27 year olds. JUUL made big moves on the west, finding every social media Influencer available to try and get them to promote the “Hottest Piece of Vapor Technology”, often paying upward of $1,000 for a post.

Now that JUUL has come under fire for its hand in the vaping epidemic, it has switched marketing directions, no longer using models and only testimonies from switched customers. But is it too late? Now that a vast amount of gen Z is hooked on nicotine, what is changing ads going to do?