A new report exposes how tobacco companies are exploiting the strong online presence of young people to market their products.
The latest research by the Kenya Tobacco Industry Monitoring and Response (TIMR), which brings together 10 key stakeholders, highlights the rapid growth of digital platforms, creating new marketing environments that were not explicitly anticipated in the Tobacco Control Act of 2007.
It found that 86 per cent of respondents use social media daily or multiple times a day, making platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and X highly effective marketing channels.
The study highlights regulatory and enforcement gaps and reveals how companies are embedding promotions into lifestyle and entertainment content through youth-centric branding.
This includes influencer partnerships and event sponsorships across popular social media platforms.
Youth aged 16 to 30 are the primary target, with content designed to glamorise tobacco use, spark curiosity and encourage experimentation.
About 79 per cent of respondents said this group is the most exposed to online promotions linked to nicotine products. Influencers play a key role, subtly integrating these products into lifestyle posts, music videos, fashion content and nightlife scenes.
Indirect Marketing Tactics
The report shows how content is carefully curated through targeted messaging to entice youth and children.
“The tobacco industry uses a variety of content types on social media, prioritising formats that are engaging, highly visual, and easily concealable, allowing promotion to be subtle yet powerful and bypass advertising bans”, the report outlines.
Photos (39 per cent) and videos (35 per cent) are the most common content types, largely aimed at young people, who account for 79 per cent of the target audience.
The most commonly used platforms include X (50 per cent), Facebook (35.7 per cent), YouTube (28.6 per cent), Instagram (28.6 per cent) and TikTok (21.4 per cent).
Among children, TikTok is the most popular platform (50 per cent), followed by YouTube (21 per cent), while for youth, TikTok and YouTube each account for 71 per cent of exposure.
Influencer posts
The study also flags hashtag campaigns and online communities, including vape-related trends, that normalise tobacco use. Humour and viral content such as memes, challenges and viral videos are used to spread promotional messaging organically,
“ Coded language and imagery – Subtle references to vaping or smoking are used to bypass monitoring and regulatory restrictions. These techniques allow tobacco companies to evade traditional advertising bans”, the research points out.
The stakeholders are now calling for the urgent revision of laws and policies to mitigate the abuse of existing frameworks by the Tobacco Industry.
“The Tobacco Control Act should explicitly include digital marketing, influencer promotion, and sponsored content and also introduce clear disclosure requirements for paid partnerships”, the report recommends among other interventions.
“As this study has indicated, the industry has already accessed the children and youth who have online presence. If this propensity by the Tobacco industry to target children and youths to use the tobacco and nicotine products is not addressed and mitigated upon soonest, then the adverse effects on a whole generation may be beyond rescue”. The report warns.
Celine Awuor, the CEO of the International Institute for Legislative Affairs (IILA), a key partner, regrets the digital loopholes, which she says should be tightened to protect young people.
“86 pc reported having come across tobacco content online. These findings are alarming and highlight that regulations on online platforms have not been fully enforced.” She says.
Areas that require policy attention, recommended by the report, are:
- Digital marketing is not explicitly defined in current tobacco legislation.
- Influencer marketing operates in grey areas regarding disclosure and accountability.
- Cross-border digital promotion complicates enforcement.
- Online sales may lack robust age-verification mechanisms.
- Ephemeral content (e.g., stories) challenges monitoring and evidence preservation
The report further underscores the need for coordinated action across multiple government ministries and agencies.
It emphasises stronger monitoring and enforcement in digital spaces, including the establishment of a dedicated digital monitoring unit to track influencer content, hashtags and covert campaigns.
Other recommended measures include collaborating with social media platforms to flag and remove tobacco-related promotions, particularly those targeting minors and strengthening age-verification systems for the online sale and delivery of nicotine products.
