Imagine this: You’re 13 and walking through a gas station mini-mart, ready to pick out a toy that your parents offered to reward you for this three-hour drive to your grandmother’s house. You see a few different options on the shelf by the register.
Do you choose the stuffed animal? The mini-Starbucks cup? The Sponge Bob SquarePants?
Images sources from the FDA.
As you look closer, you realize that these are not just toys. They’re all e-cigarettes.
Using toys to attract a new generation of smokers
For most people, it’s almost impossible to catch the pink straw sprouting out of the teddy bear’s head, the black USB-like knob protruding from the walkie-talkie, or the tiny opening at the top of the game boy. These features heat the e-liquid through a battery and produce an aerosol the person can inhale through the vessels carefully integrated into each toy.
Vaping companies implant e-cigarettes into all sorts of objects that are sold at gas stations, smoke shops, and online marketplaces alongside snacks, drinks, and household items. Through these toys, it’s possible for the industry to create playful and comforting associations with its products among young people. This approach builds off decades-old tactics that the major tobacco corporations (or “Big Tobacco”) have used to get kids’ attention. And it works: an estimated 1.63 million middle school and high school students vaped in 2024 in the U.S.
From Joe Camel to Blue Razz: The industry’s history targeting kids
For decades, Big Tobacco has inserted itself into kid-friendly spaces, from creating cartoon characters to incorporating flavors into its products. By hooking kids when their brains are still developing, corporations can secure life-long customers: studies show that nearly 9 in 10 adults who use tobacco first tried smoking before turning 18.
Take Joe Camel, a cartoon cigarette mascot of the late 80s, which the Journal of American Medicine asserted was “far more successful at marketing Camel cigarettes to children than to adults.” In 1991 this character was just as recognizable to 6-year-olds as Mickey Mouse.
Even after the corporation retired Joe Camel amid widespread pressure, including from the Corporate Accountability community, and even after the Master Settlement Agreement in the U.S. banned the use of cartoons in tobacco advertisements, the industry still finds ways to market cigarettes to youth.
And it’s not just cartoons. The industry is also adopting another of Big Tobacco’s tried-and-true tactics: flavoring. By incorporating flavors like bubble gum, watermelon, and blue raspberry, the tobacco and nicotine industry mask the harsh taste of nicotine and makes the experience akin to enjoying a lollypop. More than 90 percent of youth that use e-cigarettes report that they use flavored products. And this is happening all over the world.
Unmasking the appeal: Challenging and exposing deceit and abuse
On May 31, 2025, we’re joining the World Health Organization, and our allies from across the globe, to mark World No Tobacco Day. This annual day of learning and advocacy brings people together around the world to take action to stop Big Tobacco and the wider nicotine industry from harming our health, our communities, and our planet. And this year’s theme, “Unmasking the Appeal,” calls us to expose the manipulative product design and fruity flavors that serve as the entry point for long-term nicotine addictions. While we challenge vaping, let us also not forget that most of the tobacco industry’s business continues to be cigarettes.
Despite the harm that the tobacco and nicotine industries inflict through its deadly products, there is hope. Tobacco control advocates, government leaders, youth, and people like you all over the world have taken important steps to dissolve the industry’s power. Thanks to powerful organizing, the tobacco control movement has won protections against tobacco advertising, ensured nicotine products are taxed appropriately, and stopped the sale of e-cigarettes in countries around the world.
These measures are crucial for holding the industry accountable for its abuse and stopping future harm. But we’re not stopping there: If you haven’t yet, sign on to Corporate Accountability’s call to Make Big Tobacco Pay.
We need as many people as possible join this movement. You can help us unmask the appeal by demanding that governments take steps to Make Big Tobacco pay. We’ll present your voice alongside thousands of others to government leaders at the global tobacco treaty talks in November.
