Mobile marketing: an emerging strategy to promote electronic nicotine delivery systems.

Recent years have seen significant increases in both traditional and on-line advertising of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS).1–5 There has been little research, however, on how ENDS are advertised on mobile channels.Mobile advertising is a rapidly growing platform and primarily consists of paid advertisements on mobile-optimized websites or smartphone applications (apps), which often appear as mobile banners or videos.6 7 Recent data from 2016 reveal that Americans spend over 3 hours per day on mobile devices8 and that mobile ownership is most prevalent among certain groups, such as young adults.9 Individuals may be exposed to mobile advertisements based on websites they visit and apps used, with potential exposure increasingly dependent on digital activity patterns (ie, the types of websites visited, the types of search terms used) captured via commercial tracking methods. Global mobile advertising expenditures are projected to exceed $100 billion in 2016 and to double by 2019.8 Given recent increases in ENDS marketing and exponential surges in mobile device ownership and use, this study aims to examine the characteristics and content of ENDS advertising on the mobile platform.Using Competitrack, an advertising service that systematically collects data related to top market US advertisements, we reviewed mobile ENDS advertisements and associated metadata on advertisers, brand, number of observations and appearance on a website or mobile application (app) for a full year, from January 2015 through December 2015. In the first three quarters of 2015, Competitrack monitored 107 mobile apps and 43 mobile-optimized websites to capture …