Firms revive tobacco ad tactics for e-cigarettes

Companies vying for a stake in the fast-growing electronic cigarette business are reviving the decades-old marketing tactics the tobacco industry used to hook generations of Americans on regular smokes.

They're using cab-top and bus stop displays, sponsoring race cars and events, and encouraging smokers to "rise from the ashes" and take back their freedom in slick TV commercials featuring celebrities like TV personality Jenny McCarthy.

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The Food and Drug Administration plans to set marketing and product regulations for electronic cigarettes in the near future. But until then, almost anything goes.

"Right now it's the wild, wild west," said Mitch Zeller, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products.

Electronic cigarettes are battery-powered devices made of plastic or metal that heat a liquid nicotine solution, creating vapor that users inhale. Users get their nicotine without the thousands of chemicals, tar or odor of regular cigarettes. And they get to hold something shaped like a cigarette, while puffing and exhaling something that looks like smoke.

So far, there's not much scientific evidence showing e-cigarettes help smokers quit or smoke less, and it's unclear how safe they are. But the marketing tactics are raising worries that the devices' makers might tempt young people to take up something that could prove addictive.

The industry started by selling e-cigarettes on the Internet and at shopping-mall kiosks. It has rocketed from thousands of users in 2006 to several million worldwide who have more than 200 brands to choose from. Some e-cigarettes are stocked in prime selling space at the front of convenience-store and gas-station counters - real estate forbidden to the devices' old-fashioned cousins.

Analysts estimate sales of e-cigarettes could reach $2 billion by the end of the year. Some say the use of e-cigarettes could pass that of traditional cigarettes in the next decade.

The debate over marketing tactics is intensifying as the nation's largest tobacco companies roll out their own e-cigarettes in a push to diversify beyond their traditional business. People are smoking fewer cigarettes in the face of tax hikes, smoking bans, health concerns and social stigma, though higher prices have helped protect cigarette revenue.

Article Credit: http://www.sfgate.com

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