Big Pharma's first anti-vaping ad(?)

Photo by Christopher Snowdon

Chris Snowden spotted this very interesting ad on the London tube on Saturday. Looks like Big Pharma is getting pretty desperate. Not very surprising though. NRT sales are plummeting as Dick Puddlecote  reported already in January this year, and, as Dick writes, it doesn't look like 2014 is going to be a good year for Big Pharma's NRTs. They are looking at a predicted double digit decline in the market this year, so no wonder they are getting desperate.

"Don't vape. Quit for Good" - what does that even mean? It sure doesn't mean quitting nicotine, so maybe it's the PG or VG they want you to quit. Nah, can't be that either as they are both in the spray as well. Have a look at the list of what's in the spray here: http://goo.gl/UQL0Eb (Scroll down close to the bottom). Looks to me like they've taken some mint/menthol e-liquid, added some other scary chemicals, that I have no knowledge of, and put it in a spray can instead of a vaporizer. So it's the ritual of vaping/smoking that they want you to get rid of then?

To me this ad shows that Big Pharma is really starting to feel the impact of e-cigarettes on their NRT market, which is a good thing in my opinion. It's quite interesting to see that they don't really present any argument to why their product is better than vaping. They're only trying to say that switching to e-cigarettes is not really quitting. To be honest I'm not sure what effect this ad will have, I doubt it will make many vapers do another switch, but it might actually help raise awareness of vaping.