Grant Number:	1R01CA300653-01A1 Interpret this number
Primary Investigator:	Unger, Jennifer
Organization:	University Of Southern California
Project Title:	Evolution of Influencer-Driven E-Cigarette Marketing on Social Media and Its Effect on E-Cigarette Perceptions and Use Patterns Among Adolescents
Fiscal Year:	2026

Abstract/Project summary E-cigarette use among adolescents remains a concern in the United States with over 1.6 million (6%) of middle- and high school students reporting past 30-day use in 2024. Social media advertising exposure is associated with e-cigarette use among youth. Content hosted by micro-influencers - e.g., models, bloggers, brand ambassadors who typically have 1,000-100,000 followers and post on behalf of e-cigarette brands – is prevalent, especially on social media platforms popular among adolescents: Instagram and TikTok. Microinfluencers have been increasingly using covert marketing tactics such as audio-visual effects, including stylizing themselves to appear younger, using autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) sounds (e.g., tapping on an e-cigarette) that can trigger pleasant sensations, and depicting e-cigarettes in attractive lifestyle contexts (e.g., healthy lifestyle, gaming, computer-generated avatar). Micro-influencers’ posts also often lack or have non-compliant with requirements implemented by the U.S. Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) e-cigarette brand sponsorship disclosures or nicotine warning labels. These tactics could diminish adolescents’ harm perceptions of e-cigarettes, contribute to normalization of e-cigarette use, and expose e-cigarette never-users to e-cigarette content. The overall goal of this project is to inform the field about e-cigarette-related influencer marketing on social media and its effects on youth. To understand the impact of these marketing tactics, the proposed study will 1) conduct two randomized between-subject experiments among 6,000 adolescents (per each experiment) recruited nationwide and an eye-tracking within-subject experiment among 300 California adolescents to test the effects of audio-visual features of e-cigarette influencer marketing on perceptions of influencer credibility, e-cigarette harm perceptions, appeal, and susceptibility to e-cigarette use (Aim 1), and 2) detect and monitor influencers’ use of audio-visual marketing features on social media over time (2019-2029), using multimodal deep learning (Aim 2). Findings from this project will provide information about adolescents’ risks of exposure to e-cigarette-related content promoted by influencers on social media. This information can inform the development of effective tobacco prevention and cessation interventions for adolescents.





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