Juul’s Twitter account followed by countless minors
Juul Labs has been working hard to reduce access to their pod vapes for under-age users. However a recent study has just proved that, in 2018, the start-up’s Twitter account was followed by mostly adolescents.
The JAMA Pediatrics medical review published an article lately that put the company to shame. The publication showed that, in the month of April 2018, 44.9% of the Juul account’s followers were aged 13 to 17, and if we take into account the whole 13 to 20 year-old range, the statistic is 80%. However, in most states of the USA, the legal age for vaping is set at 21 years old.
After the article was published, a representative of Juul Labs immediately contested Annice Kim’s report. In his opinion, these figures are entirely wrong. To back up his statement, he obtained data from the Clarabridge CX Social software. Based on the software analysis, Juul had a different account of their metrics. Juul’s Twitter account follower breakdown indicated only 3,9% of 13 to 17 year-olds in May 2018. A significant difference compared to Annice Kim’s figures.
A controversial marketing policy for Juul
According to the Juul Labs rep, the company is doing everything they can to stop teenagers from connecting with their social media but the fact remains that there is no way to restrict access depending on age on these platforms.
Furthermore, to avoid accusations of promoting Juul pods to teenagers, no publicity material for vaping products can be viewed on their account, and the company implemented a monitoring system to delete all tweets with product reviews and promotion.
For some months now, Juul Labs has been in the cross-hairs of the FDA. The American health agency has accused the company of promoting e-cigs in teen populations. This new study could damage this already tenuous relationship.
