If Tobacco has formed a historical return to the airwaves and pages of customer magazines with advertisements for e-cigarettes, however the times of regulation free advertising may shortly be over — and with them, a potentially profitable new pipeline of advertising dollars to networks and publishers.
The Federal Food and Drug Administration, that is likely to weigh in on e-cigarettes in October, will probably propose a prohibition on TV advertisements for e-cigs, as per a study out Monday in the financial-services group CLSA Americas. A ban would check an emerging source of earnings for TELEVISION networks, where spending on e-cigarette commercials rose 17.9% to 2012 from 2011, as per a Citibank report before this year.
The booming e-cigarette marketplace is now unregulated, allowing Big Tobacco’s historical return to TELEVISION after over 40 years too renewed print advertising spending for tobacco, that has decreased since the Master Settlement Agreement in 1998.
E-cigarette manufacturers have said they intend to carry on advertising their goods across a variety of media unless and until a prohibition is introduced.
Meanwhile, Lorillard’s Blu e-cigarette, which claims almost 40% of the market-share, launched a TELEVISION and internet effort this summer with Jenny McCarthy. That followed an earlier TELEVISION and print campaign featuring celebrity Stephen Dorff.
Other gamers in the e-cigarette business, including Fin and NJoy, have been running TELEVISION commercials.
The FDA is anticipated to issue a proposed rule in October that’ll enable it to regulate e-cigarettes. In those days, the proposition will probably be open for public opinions, a procedure which will probably continue for months.
Jenny Haliski, a spokeswoman for the FDA, said the firm cannot comment in the contents of the planned rule.
“Further study is required to evaluate the possible public health advantages and dangers of e-cigarettes and other innovative tobacco products.”
The CLSA report, meanwhile, predicted other likely proposals in the FDA on e-cigarettes are a prohibition on sales to minors and possibly the demand of the warning label. The FDA could also limit on-line sales, the report stated.
Limitations to on-line sales would probably help the country’s three largest tobacco manufacturers Altria, Reynolds American and Lorillard — due to the huge distribution networks, the CLSA report said.
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