How vaping advertisers target young people 

VicHealth, in partnership with Quit, conducted research revealing the sneaky and unethical ways the vaping industry uses social media to promote and sell dangerous products to young Australians.

The research included two separate studies focusing on TikTok and Instagram. We used artificial intelligence (AI) and qualitative content analysis to identify billions of pro-vaping social media posts and user profiles on popular social media platforms TikTok and Instagram.

Since social media has no borders, international trends around vaping are easily consumed by Australian audiences and then copied – exposing young people to pro-vaping content. 

What’s more, many overseas vaping stores offer international shipping. 

Across both TikTok and Instagram, there is also content about vaping health harms, addiction, injury risk and environmental impacts – but this pales in comparison to the amount of content that promotes vaping.   

Vape retailers primarily use TikTok and Instagram to target young people, because this is where they spend a lot of their time online.  

While our research focused on TikTok and Instagram, we know vaping retailers and influencers also post a high volume of promotional content on other social media platforms too. It’s difficult to accurately measure how much vaping content there really is, as not all posts and profiles use hashtags or explicitly mention vaping in the caption.  

Vape retailers exploit social media algorithms  

In our research for vaping-related hashtags and activity, we found TikTok to be miles ahead of Instagram. 

TikTok is based on a content or interest graph, meaning that the algorithm is more likely to show content based on interests – that is, posts and profiles you’ve engaged with before. By comparison, Instagram is based on a social graph, meaning it is more likely to show you content based on your connections and friends. 

Due to the content graph on TikTok, once someone starts consuming vaping content, they are likely to continue being served more vaping content. 

There is a trend of vaping content that appears as non-promotional, but much of it is coming directly from vape retailers.  

By creating content which jumps on trends popular with young people, be it a pro-vaping or anti-vape trend, vaping suppliers play on this to attract attention and ultimately drive more traffic to their online stores.  

Our Instagram study identified over 18K vaping-related profiles around the world, and of the accounts which included location details, 9% of them were identified to be Australia-based (the highest % of all countries identified, followed by UK 4% and Iran 2%) .

The vaping industry isn’t using household names as influencers – they're playing on subcultures outside of the mainstream and choosing influencers popular with young people. While they’re not well-known by parents and teachers, some of these accounts have over 1 million followers and hold a strong influence over young people.

Particular influencer styles tend to target particular follower genders (e.g. disposables tend to be targeted to woman and youths, whereas sophisticated or rugged products are targeted at men). 

Adolescence is a time where young people explore their identity and sometimes engage in risk-taking behaviours. The vaping industry is exploiting this by pushing social media content which encourages young people to explore vape flavours, presenting vaping as normal, sexy, funny or cool.  

The vaping industry is continually evolving its marketing strategies – we support the Australian Government’s plan to extend and strengthen existing laws to protect the next generation from harmful messages which normalise vaping. 

Social media sites also have a role to play. It’s time social media companies cracked down on hosting content which normalises and promotes vaping among young people. 

Read more about what the Federal Government is doing in the vaping space:

This issue of vaping and how the industry targets kids is extremely concerning, but it’s important not to jump to conclusions. This doesn’t mean your child is vaping, however it’s likely they’ve seen vaping content online. 

That’s why it’s important to read up on vaping to start an open and honest conversation. Check out our page to get some quick facts and tips on how to talk to your kids about vaping: 

• Media release: Bad Vapefluence - Teaching kids to hide vapes from parents and making vaping glamourous
• Get the facts: Quit's resources for parents and carers
• The Alcohol and Drug Foundation: Talking to young people about vaping