Smoked tobacco is the most common form of nicotine delivery. It is available in a number of forms including cigarettes, cigarillos or small cigars, e-cigarettes or electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), tobacco pouches or chewing tobacco, bidis or clove smokeless cigarettes, and hookahs or water pipes. Each of these tobacco products have different health risks associated with them and all can cause second-hand smoke, when others are exposed to the smoke emitted from a smoker’s mouth or lungs.
Cigarettes are a popular and well-known tobacco product. They are manufactured to contain tobacco and flavorings, and are often smoked using a filter that reduces the amount of smoke emitted during smoking. Cigarettes also contain a highly addictive drug, nicotine, and can lead to serious health problems, such as heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, respiratory illness, and other chronic diseases.
The cigarette market is saturated with brand varieties, which differ in their design characteristics such as filter ventilation and tobacco blend. However, little is known about how these differences are perceived by consumers. We investigated whether the availability of multiple product variants affects perceptions of cigarette quality and if these variations have a significant impact on consumer choice. Using data from the Dutch tobacco market, we identified five clusters of cigarettes with different combinations of design parameters: low-TNCO cigarettes, British-style cigarettes, American blend cigarettes by Philip Morris, expanded tobacco cigarettes and dark tobacco cigarettes. The fact that many products within one cluster share similar design characteristics suggests that these variations do not represent discernibly different cigarette experiences to the consumer and are more likely driven by marketing considerations. You can also find these at the best vape stores grayson ga.
We conducted in-person, semi-structured interviews with 103 current smokers of different ages. They were asked to rank the perceived harm, attractiveness and appeal of each cigarette descriptor for all variants of a particular cigarette brand. They were also asked to rank their overall perception of cigarette quality for each of the five prestige descriptors.
Our results show that although the availability of a variety of cigarette brands in a particular country does not influence cigarette uptake, use or frequency of smoking, the presence of different types of cigarette within a brand may play an important role in consumers’ decisions to smoke. This finding is consistent with the theory that brand variety may serve as a means of targeting subgroups of the smoking population and providing consumers with more choices. We therefore suggest that future studies should focus on the development of models to predict cigarette consumption based on the specific combinations of design parameters that are used in a particular cigarette variant. This could provide a useful tool for tobacco policy makers to consider when developing future cigarette regulations. It may also help to understand how the removal of certain cigarette descriptors, such as ‘light’ or ‘low-nicotine’, has affected uptake and use of these cigarettes. This might inform the decision about whether and how to change cigarette labeling regulations.
