The Sun has a dig at vaping again

[zouzounaki]

I’m going to send you the sylvanian families vape shop @Simon G

 

[Simon G]

CAPTION COMPETITION

Do you have any 12mg?

No sorry.....

 

[zouzounaki]

“sorry, it all went like little hotcakes in our BACK TO SCHOOL! sale”

 

[zouzounaki]

If they do ban this kind of marketing for vape products, I wonder if we’ll see thousands strong protest out with my little pony flags, rainbow cloud tanks and roller boots, chaining themselves to parliament and suchlike?

 

[zouzounaki]

Seriously next time I'm in Asda I'm going see if they have any 50/50 lemon tart.

..... all this thread has done has talked me into trying some dinner lady.

Ok, just don’t spend all your pocket money on it, or you’ll get grounded.

 

[Simon G]

We should be fighting against negative press, not hiding. We need advocacy, not capitulation.

I agree and I'm listening .....

I just don't know how to fight against these accusations right now. Some of this packaging looks very childish, It looks like it would appeal to children far more than adults.

I don't think saying "It's not aimed at kids" is good enough, it would be easier to prove that it was, you'd line a bunch of kids up and ask them which ones they liked the look of most... and they'd be going "I like this one because it has a funny face on" and stuff like that.

Wouldn't it be more sensible to make sure e-liquids do not look overly appealing to children? Does that seem strange to everyone, it just seems like a responsible way to package it to me.....

 

[zouzounaki]

It’s worth noting as well that eliquid isn’t always at fag counters. In places like b and m stores, poundland etc it’s just out on the regular shelves and at the till points. In the newsagents etc around the city I live in it’s often in the shop windows next to the bongs, selfie sticks and suchlike.

 

[KetracelWhite]

True. Nice to see how this thread has developed. Phrases like ‘Dinner Lady’ have a negative connotation as far as I’m concerned - mental images of lumpy stillborn custard and that liver with ‘tube-like’ veins in it.

 

[KetracelWhite]

Do you think this ‘reversion to childhood’ or ‘self-infantilisation’ is being acted out on a mass-psychological level as a reaction to the current grinding tedium inherent in consumerism maybe?

 

[zouzounaki]

No, I think the modern western world tends to produce populations whose main goal in life is entertainment, and that advertising likes to try and appeal to nostalgia. Because of the bias towards a flavour experience in the e-cigarette market, an appeal to nostalgia naturally means sweets from the 70s and 80s. It hooks the customer in.

At the same time, there is the “lifestyle choice” factor. Nicotine replacement items are the opposite of smoking in the sense that they have never been marketed as cool or rebellious. They are sterile, and sold in chemists in pharmaceutical packaging. Vapourisers actually represent the first of these that can make an attempt at getting away from this, given their evolution in an independent market far removed from the pharmaceutical industry.

Because vapourisers are unwieldy, fairly stupid looking electrical devices then - looking through the lens of popular culture - they can never have the same cool, rebellious cache that fags have. So the marketing is an attempt to create this by pushing it either as a lifestyle choice (like beards, skateboarding, male grooming, giant clouds, extreme sports and activities etc.), something to become obsessed about (flavour/clouds), “high-end” connoisseur style devices, or by appealing to nostalgia.

This is just my partly spontaneous and not really very well put together thought about it, feel free to disagree.