If you asked the world’s second-largest tobacco company about their new marketing strategies, I’m going to assume that they wouldn’t include running ads in kids apps in their response.
Nevertheless, an ad for Vype, the first e-cigarette marketed by British American Tobacco, recently appeared as an in-app advertisement in a kids iPad game.
The ad was spotted and tweeted out by author and Learning Without Frontiers founder Graham Brown-Martin:
British American Tobacco advertise cigarettes to kids via iPad games for kids with Apple iAD's pic.twitter.com/aVstTSrFPM
— Graham Brown-Martin (@GrahamBM) October 25, 2013
The in-app e-cig ad was then retweeted by the Twitter account for E-Cigarette Forum, the biggest online forum devoted entirely to e-cigarettes.
@GrahamBM @neil_october Damn. I hope @BATPress do the right thing then, and pull the ads. Seems Apple also needs to seriously rethink things
— E-Cigarette Forum (@ecigaretteforum) October 25, 2013
British American Tobacco quickly responded, tweeting that they had yanked all online advertising for their Vype product.
We've found a problem with the advertising of Vype. We apologise and have pulled all online Vype advertising. We're investigating the cause
— BAT Press Office (@BATPress) October 25, 2013
Vype is an e-cigarette brand marketed and sold by Nicoventures, a subsidiary of British American Tobacco #ecigs
— BAT Press Office (@BATPress) October 25, 2013
Swift move, still, the question remains – just how in the hell did this happen?
.@BATPress pleased that you pulled the advertising & would be interested to learn how it happened to appear on childrens iPad games – thanks
— Graham Brown-Martin (@GrahamBM) October 25, 2013
Image via Graham Brown-Martin, Twitter