The Glamorisation of Nicotine Pouches: A Threat to Young People’s Health

Nicotine pouches are becoming a major health concern. Despite claims that the products are aimed at existing adult smokers and vapers, brands have been strongly criticised for using marketing tactics that attract non-smokers, mainly from the young population. Concerns are legitimised by the fact that nicotine pouches currently fall outside the scope of existing European Union tobacco product legislation, leading to a broad spectrum of individualised responses from member states. While Belgium and the Netherlands have implemented bans on the sale of nicotine pouches, most other European countries only have recommendations rather than statutory regulations in place to guide the marketing of such products. This has led to legal loopholes that are exploited by brands, with aggressive social media advertising targeted at young people.

The Instagram Study

In June 2019, Japan Tobacco International launched a new tobacco-free nicotine pouch onto the UK market. Branded ‘Nordic Spirit’, the product swiftly developed a strong social media presence and, by 2021, it had become the country’s number one nicotine pouch. Today, it holds a 53.6% market share and fetches annual sales of £19.7 million.

Wanting to understand more about how social media marketing had contributed to this rise in popularity, I conducted a study of Nordic Spirit’s Instagram posts between 2019 and 2023. Using qualitative research methods, I investigated the different linguistic and other semiotic resources (e.g. image, colour, typography, layout, composition) at work in posts, their ideological patterns and how they work together to frame nicotine pouches as essential products for young people.

Key Findings

The study identified four core messages that Nordic Spirit uses in their posts to target young people:

1. Nicotine pouches are fun and freedom – The posts create an illusion of pleasure and playfulness, with images focused on shared moments of leisure (e.g. beaches, pubs), often in the sunshine. Posts also emphasise strong connections with large music festivals, where free samples are distributed to attendees.

2. Nicotine pouches are Nordic happiness – Tapping into the history of snus in Sweden, posts promote romanticised aspects of the Swedish way of life that can be achieved through nicotine pouch consumption. Posts also promote sponsored Swedish cultural events (e.g. Midsummer, crayfish parties), embedding nicotine pouches into group celebrations.

3. Nicotine pouches are discreet and fuss free – With young women in mind, posts emphasise the cleanliness, discreetness and uncomplicated consumption of nicotine pouches. They also recognise people’s busy lifestyles and the ease of nicotine pouches in enabling them to carry out their everyday activities uninterrupted.

4. Nicotine pouches are healthy and scientifically rational – Posts place great emphasis on the ‘healthiness’ of nicotine pouches, relying heavily on images of fruit, ‘healthy’ colour schemes, infographics and ‘scientific’ shapes to connote what cannot be explicitly stated in the text.

Overall, the posts are extremely misleading, underplay the dangers of nicotine and frame pouches as a trendy, must-have experience, which poses a real threat to public health and risks attracting new, young users.

Recommendations

Based on the study, I present the following recommendations designed to address the key issues identified above:

1. The EU’s Tobacco Products Directive must be updated to include nicotine pouches under its regulations.
2. Social media companies must implement more stringent age verification processes and more robust parental controls to block young people’s access to nicotine-related content.
3. Festivals that allow entry to under 18s should reconsider their partnerships with nicotine pouch brands and prohibit the distribution of such products to anyone under the legal age.
4. Mandatory labelling that carries much clearer health warnings should be enforced for nicotine pouch packaging.
5. Nicotine pouches should be integrated into existing health education curricula, with a particular focus on health risks, addiction potential and social consequences of nicotine use.
6. Public health campaigns should be employed to raise awareness of the health risks and addictive nature of nicotine pouches and their long-term consequences for young people.

The article is written by

Lauren Alex O’Hagan, Research Fellow, The Open University, and Affiliate Researcher, Örebro University

on the request of PopNAD