Gerzof Richard on Vape Industry Marketing, Children & Smartphones, Twitter Banning Political Ads

David Gerzof Richard, a senior affiliated faculty member in Communication Studies, talked to Fox News about how the e-cigarette industry markets to consumers, particularly teens. “They were regulated out of being able to advertise on traditional media, things like billboards, magazine ads, TV ads. Those were suddenly off the table. So what they did is they readjusted on to digital media, specifically social media, and they went into a very targeted approach.”

In addition to using social media ads to target specific demographics, vaping companies have also introduced flavors that appeal to kids. Watch the piece on Fox News.

Gerzof Richard also shared his insights with WBZ about children and phones, as a local case made headlines this week regarding a former BC student sending thousands of text messages to her boyfriend encouraging him to kill himself.

“If you’re going to give you child a smartphone, you need to treat them with the responsibility that as if they were driving a vehicle.”

He spoke to NBC Boston this week about Twitter banning political ads: “I was blown away. It’s not every day that a company makes a decision to walk away from hundreds of millions of dollars.”