August 7, 2024—Vital Strategies’ Tobacco Enforcement Reporting Movement (TERM) has won an Award of Excellence in the One-of-a-Kind Publications category at this year’s APEX Awards for its groundbreaking report, “The Next Frontier in Tobacco Marketing: The Metaverse, NFTs, Advergames and More.” The report spotlights the power of AI and the expertise of Vital Strategies’ tobacco control specialists to uncover evidence of tobacco marketing on social media platforms and news sites.
“Tobacco kills more than half of its users, yet the tobacco industry continues to expand its efforts to addict a new generation,” said Nandita Murukutla, Vice President, Behavioral Insights and Evaluation at Vital Strategies. “The APEX Award underscores the importance of our work with governments worldwide to confront deceptive marketing tactics of the tobacco industry. With over 2 billion lives at risk, we must use the insights from this report to protect future generations from the harms of tobacco, starting with helping policymakers understand features of digital technologies to identify policy gaps.”
APEX 2024 is the 36th annual awards program recognizing excellence in publishing by professional communicators. The APEX Awards are based on excellence in graphic design, editorial content, and the ability to achieve overall communications excellence.
“We are grateful to the APEX Awards for acknowledging the dedicated efforts of our team of researchers, editors, designers, and partners to publish this report,” said Melina Samar Magsumbol, Senior Research Manager, Policy Advocacy and Communication at Vital Strategies. “TERM is a pioneering initiative using data to counter the tobacco industry efforts to hook new users. We look forward to expanding our monitoring and reporting efforts to safeguard youth from harmful tobacco products.”
“The Next Frontier in Tobacco Marketing: The Metaverse, NFTs, Advergames and More” highlights how tobacco companies exploit novel digital marketing avenues to fight declining global smoking rates and circumvent stricter advertising regulations. These unregulated spaces are dominated by younger audiences, with nearly 51% of metaverse participants being age 13 or younger. TERM offers actionable recommendations for governments to prevent tobacco companies from marketing their products unchecked on these platforms.
Visit APEX Awards for a complete list of winners.
Read the full TERM report here.
About TERM
Vital Strategies’ Tobacco Enforcement and Reporting Movement (TERM) is an AI-based, expert-driven monitoring and reporting system built in response to the industry seizing on the power of digital platforms. TERM tracks and analyzes tobacco marketing using news and social media listening and packages findings into easy-to-read reports that are available for governments, tobacco control advocates, researchers, journalists, and other stakeholders. Find out more at termcommunity.org. Follow us on X @TERMCommunity and Instagram @termcommunity.
About Vital Strategies
Vital Strategies believes every person should be protected by an equitable and effective public health system. We partner with governments, communities and organizations around the world to reimagine public health so that health is supported in all the places we live, work and play. The result is millions of people living longer, healthier lives.
To find out more, please visit www.vitalstrategies.org or follow us on LinkedIn.