"It Looks Like an Adult Sweetie Shop": Point-of-Sale Tobacco Display Exposure and Brand Awareness in Scottish Secondary School Students

Conclusions:
This mixed-methods study showed that higher cigarette brand awareness was significantly associated with regularly visiting small shops and noticing PoS displays in small and large shops, even when students’ smoking status, smoking in their social networks, leisure activities, and demographics were included as confounding variables. This highlights the importance of PoS displays of tobacco products in increasing brand awareness, which is known to increase youth smoking susceptibility, and thus the importance of implementing PoS display bans in all shops.

Implications:
As increasing restrictions have been placed on tobacco promotion in many countries, PoS displays of cigarettes in shops have become an important source of young people’s exposure to tobacco products and marketing. This mixed-methods study showed that prior to the PoS display ban in Scotland, and controlling for other factors, 13- and 15-year olds who regularly visited small shops and those who noticed PoS displays in small and large shops, had a higher awareness of cigarette brands. This highlights the importance of PoS displays in increasing youth brand awareness, which increases smoking susceptibility, and thus the need for comprehensive bans on PoS displays which cover all shops.

Source: Nicotine and Tobacco Research - September 8, 2016 Category: Addiction Authors: van der Sluijs, W., Haseen, F., Miller, M., MacGregor, A., Sharp, C., Amos, A., Best, C., Stead, M., Eadie, D., Pearce, J., Frank, J., Haw, S. Tags: Original Investigation Source Type: research