The Future of Nicotine Addiction: When Smokers Become Vapers

The nation's tobacco industry is facing one monumental impediment to future growth: a shrinking (and dying) customer base of cigarette smokers.

Business 101 suggests three strategies to strengthen future sales and profits. First, redefine the core business; in this case, shift from relying on tobacco and expand into a broader nicotine business. Second, acquire start-up companies developing leading-edge technologies that deliver nicotine in novel ways. And third, bring in new customers who will sustain the core business into the future.

In 2007, the seeds of these strategies were planted in the U.S. - not in tobacco fields but in high-tech labs. That season's robust harvest featured electronic cigarettes, also called e-cigarettes or e-cigs. And the potentially addictive consumer habit propelling this market's growth is called vaping.

Vaping is vernacular for "smoking" electronic cigarettes, a technology invented allegedly by a pharmacist in China that allows nicotine to be atomized and delivered through electrically powered pseudo-cigarettes. E-cigs produce no odor, and what appears to be smoke is actually vapor, thus "vaping." Street argot for this 21st century technology includes "eGo," "tailpiping," "juice carto," "throat hit," and "dripping."

On the one hand, electronic cigarettes can be construed as a blessing. E-cig smokers receive atomized nicotine mixed with compelling flavors called "smoke juice." Imbibers don't inhale roughly 70 known carcinogens associated with burning tobacco products. Their exhalations purportedly don't disseminate harmful second-hand smoke.

Vaping provides an alternative habit for long-term cigarette smokers, helping reduce some of their risks for developing lung and heart diseases. Potential public health benefits are noteworthy and persuasive.

On the other hand, this new nicotine-delivery technology has foreboding implications, especially when coupled with sophisticated marketing techniques promoting vaping behavior via traditional media and online.

First introduced in Europe in 2006 and then in the U.S. in 2007, e-cigarettes heralded a significant alternative to traditional cigarettes, buttressed by claims that e-cigs reduce carcinogens and other toxicants to below harmful levels. The sales potential did not go unnoticed by the tobacco industry.

In April 2012, Lorillard, Inc., the third largest cigarette manufacturer in the U.S., purchased one of the niche brands called blu Ecigs for $135 million. And that's when the marketing game really changed. This was a watershed moment in the short timeline of e-cigs.

Manufacturer and marketer of stalwart cigarette brands such as Kent, Newport and True, Lorillard has amassed the resources and marketing sophistication that consumers associate with classic cigarette advertisers. And they're applying these assets to their newest acquisition, blu.