Webinar: New image, same tactics - tobacco and vaping industry strategies to promote youth vaping

Dr Christina Watts, the Daffodil Centre, University of Sydney.

Please contact us if you are interested in accessing the webinar recording.

Presented by Dr Christina Watts, this webinar covers tobacco and vaping industry tactics.

Vaping has become a major public health issue in Australia among young people. Although the tobacco and vaping industry promotes e-cigarettes as tools to help adults quit smoking, the evidence shows that these products are aggressively designed and marketed to appeal to youth. These tactics are not new—they closely mirror long-standing strategies used by the tobacco industry for decades to attract new generations of consumers.

This webinar unpacks the evidence on how both the tobacco and vaping industries interfere with public health efforts. It explores how these industries use sophisticated, calculated tactics to undermine tobacco control, shape public narratives, delay regulation, and position themselves as partners in “harm reduction” while simultaneously expanding their market among young people. The same playbook of manipulation, misinformation, and political lobbying is now being redeployed in the vaping context.

Against the backdrop of Australia’s major reforms to vaping regulation, the session also presents a contemporary case study illustrating how industry actors have responded—publicly and behind the scenes—to influence policymaking and weaken regulatory proposals.

• Information about tobacco and vaping industry tactics
• Information about industry responses to vaping regulation

This webinar was developed by Dr Christina Watts, the Daffodil Centre.

(Webinar conducted on 29/4/2026)