I
f there’s one thing we can be sure of in this
industry, it’s that we’ll be on the receiving end
of negative media coverage every so often.
Unfortunately, we’re now back in the throes of
this very scenario.
Once again, the ugly side of the mainstream
press is rearing its head and latching on to
stories borrowed from the US about ‘killer’ vaping.
They’re whipping up a frenzy of fear among the
public, despite UK-based evidence that – time
and again – refutes these health scares.
But why?
“It’s this whole ‘clickbait’ scenario,” says Dan,
“when they publish something positive about
vaping, the only people that tend to engage
are the vapers; but negative articles get a huge
amount of interaction.”
It is these negative articles that appeal to people’s
emotions, carefully constructed to incite a
response – be that negative or positive.
Dan adds: “You’ve got the people who are pro-
vaping that will interact and put across the
correct view and you’ve also got the anti-vapers
who are commenting like ‘yeah look, I told you!’
“The problem is that it’s all based on advertising
revenue. So, the reason that the negative stories
become so much more high profi le is because the
interaction drives that revenue.”
This, of course, is only really relevant in the
context of online news but, these days, all news
is online. You’ll see a front-page story on the
newspaper stand, but that very same story will
also have been published online – gaining social
media attention, too.
“We need to stop engaging directly with all of
these negative stories and try to take away that
advertising revenue for them and I know it’s very
frustrating, because you want to correct the
mistruths,” says Dan.
He adds: “What we need to be doing is PR, using
the vaping associations and media companies
like Vapouround to push out the correct story,
rather than engaging and making these other
media companies a lot of money out of righteous
indignation – and it is righteous.”
However, our industry has one major hurdle
to overcome: advertising restrictions. These
restrictions leave us with an inability to counter
bad press on a wide scale, because we can’t get
information out there with the same reach as
mainstream media outlets.
“It’s the biggest Achilles heel we have as an
industry, that we don’t have a channel to right
the wrong information being put out there,” Dan
says, “I think it’s ridiculous that we’re not allowed
to mention the Public Health England statement
about vaping being 95 percent less harmful.
How is that information going to get across to
your general smoking members of the public
otherwise?”
The ASA’s hands are somewhat tied when
it comes to implementing new advertising
restrictions though, because TPD regulations
also restrict advertising for the vaping industry.
For now, it’s a waiting game and one we’ve been
playing for three years: Brexit.
Dan says: “We’re waiting to see what the outcome
with Brexit is, because we’d then have a big
opportunity to work with the regulators and come
up with what is a sensible and robust policy that
ensures the message can be communicated to
adult smokers.”
In the meantime, we can make sure that we’re
not lining the pockets of media corporations
that seek to destroy us: so, let’s not take the
(click)bait.
“It’s the biggest
Achilles heel
we have as an
industry, that
we don’t have
a channel to
right the wrong
information
being put out
there.”
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