Using marketing frameworks to predict the effects of e-cigarette commercials on youth

Purpose This paper aims to apply the Product Life Cycle (PLC) and Product Evolutionary Cycle (PEC) frameworks to the nicotine and tobacco market to predict the impact of television commercials for electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) on youth. Design/methodology/approach Surveys were administered over a three-year period to 417 alternative high school students from Southern California who had never used e-cigarettes, cigarettes or cigars at the baseline. Covariate-adjusted logistic regression causal mediation models were used to test competing hypotheses from the PLC and PEC frameworks. Findings Results support a refined version of the PEC framework where e-cigarette commercials increase the odds of e-cigarette use, which leads to subsequent use of competing products including cigarettes and cigars. Practical implications This investigation demonstrates the utility of frameworks that conceptualize youth-oriented marketing as a two-part process in which potential customers are first convinced to adopt a behavior and then enticed to use a specific product to enact the behavior. Social implications Rising rates of nicotine and tobacco product use among youth may be partially attributable to e-cigarette commercials. Originality/value Regulations in the USA that permit television commercials for e-cigarettes but restrict the promotion of cigarettes and cigars have created an opportunity to study product adoption among youth consumers when one product has a strategic marketing advantage.