Since 2016, the electronic cigarette market has been growing in Southeast Asia as tobacco companies increasingly target adolescents and young adults. An investigative documentary by Channel News Asia—featuring data from Vital Strategies’ Tobacco Enforcement Reporting Movement (TERM)—adds to the drumbeat of warnings about the pernicious tactics of electronic cigarette marketers aimed at trapping future generations of tobacco users.
Released as part of the popular media outlet’s Undercover Asia series, “Smoke and Mirrors: Southeast Asia’s Vaping Crisis” shows how cross-border marketing is driving rising rates of electronic cigarette use among Southeast Asian youth. Despite growing data about the health risks of electronic cigarette use, regulations to protect youth from the harmful effects of nicotine in electronic cigarettes are lagging behind.
TERM’s 2022 Issue Brief, “Vape Tricks in Indonesia: How E-Cigarette Companies Use Social Media To Hook Youth,” provided critical information to Channel News Asia. In the report, TERM, the digital and reporting monitoring system Vital Strategies launched in 2019 to provide continuous, real-time data on tobacco marketing, documented how electronic cigarettes are being marketed in Indonesia.
Rather than being depicted for what they are—delivery devices for nicotine—electronic cigarettes are pitched as high-tech gadgets or fashionable lifestyle items. Flavors such as fruit, bubble gum, soda or cheesecake all directly appeal to younger people, as do the anime characters that some brands incorporate into product design.
“Smoke and Mirrors” documents how “vaping culture” is heavily marketed and keeping young people hooked. Social media posts by influencers and models glamorize electronic cigarette use and promote specific brands and flavors, distorting perceptions about their actual harms. Even the words “vape” or “vaping” are industry marketing terms designed to give the impression that aerosols from these products are as harmless as water vapor.
Source:https://termcommunity.com/assets/content/Protecting-Youth-From-Online-E-Cigarette%20Marketing.pdf
The documentary is an example of how media advocacy—supported and driven by data—can amplify public health risks, change public perceptions and shape policy. By translating the insights from the TERM report into a media story for a platform with wide reach, Vital Strategies’ Policy Advocacy and Communication team was able to stimulate and amplify larger conversations about public health, youth vulnerability, and the need for stricter tobacco control regulations in the region.
Featuring TERM partners, including the Indonesia Ministry of Health and members of the Indonesian Consumers Association, the documentary shows how governments in Southeast Asia have been scrambling to keep electronic cigarettes out of the hands of minors, with some considering vaping bans.
Vietnam’s National Assembly voted unanimously on Nov. 30, 2024, to ban electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products starting in 2025. In Malaysia, the former minister of health, Khairy Jamiluddin proposed a “generational end game” bill. If the bill had passed in its entirety, it would have prevented people born in 2007 or later from ever legally purchasing smoking products, including electronic cigarettes, even after they turn 18—the legal age to purchase tobacco—in 2025.
At the same time, some governments are moving in the other direction: In 2023, Zaliha Mustafa, the Health Minister of Malaysia, de-listed liquid nicotine from the Poisons Act, which legalized nicotine electronic cigarettes for all ages.
The Channel News Asia documentary, which first aired in March 2023 across 29 territories in Asia, has become a powerful tool to highlight the looming nicotine addiction crisis in Southeast Asia. “Smoke and Mirrors” was also aired on Singapore Airlines’ in-flight entertainment.
Controlling cigarettes already poses a significant public health burden, and the introduction of electronic cigarettes targeted to a younger population only complicates the challenge to regulate the marketing environment.
About TERM
Vital Strategies’ Tobacco Enforcement and Reporting Movement (TERM) is a real-time monitoring and reporting service that identifies trends and emerging threats of unhealthy digital marketing, such as tobacco or alcohol. TERM is currently used to track and analyze tobacco marketing on social media and news sites in India, Indonesia, and Mexico.
TERM analyzes thousands of digital content that are scanned using AI tools, allowing trained researchers to detect marketing activity, identify bad actors, and deliver clear reports for policy action. TERM insights, summarized in country-specific reports that are robust, timely, and easy to understand, enable civil society organizations and other stakeholders to drive counter-marketing campaigns, spark advocacy, prompt media action, and provide policymakers with the evidence to act.