WHO is pleased to announce the theme for the 2025 World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) campaign: “Unmasking the Appeal: Exposing Industry Tactics on Tobacco and Nicotine Products.” This year, the campaign will focus on revealing the tactics that the tobacco and nicotine industries use to make their harmful products seem attractive.
Why this theme?
Despite significant progress in global tobacco control, the tobacco and nicotine industries continue to adapt their strategies to attract and retain consumers. These efforts undermine public health and target vulnerable groups, particularly youth.
By exposing these tactics, WHO seeks to drive awareness, advocate for stronger policies, including a ban on flavours that make tobacco and nicotine products more appealing, and protect public health.
Bright products. Dark intentions.
One of the primary public health challenges today is the attractiveness of tobacco, nicotine, and related products, particularly to young audiences. The industry consistently tries to find ways to make these products appealing, adding flavours and other agents that change their smell, taste, or appearance. These additives are designed to mask the harshness of tobacco, thereby increasing its palatability, particularly among young people. Shameless manipulation of our children, for industry profit. Every day, tobacco and nicotine industries use carefully engineered products and deceptive tactics to hook a new generation of users and keep existing ones. Appealing flavours, but hidden dangers.
An estimated 37 million children aged 13-15 years worldwide use tobacco. In many countries the rate of e-cigarette use of young people exceeds that of adults. Marketing content promoting e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches and heated tobacco products has been viewed more than 3.4 billion times on social media platforms. Flavours are found in many nicotine and tobacco products. There are about 16 000 unique flavours. Flavours are often cited as the number one reason for initiation of nicotine and tobacco products use.
Common tactics include:
glamorized marketing：
1. Glamorized marketing: Sleek designs, attractive colours, and alluring flavours are strategically used to attract a younger demographic, including through digital media channels.
2.deceptive design：
Deceptive designs: Some products mimic sweets, candies, and even cartoon characters—items children naturally find appealing.
3.coolants and additives：
Coolants and additives: These can make the experience smoother, increasing the likelihood of continued use and reducing the chance of quitting.
Manipulative product designs, attractive flavours, and glamourized marketing create a false sense of security and evoke desirability. These tactics can contribute to early initiation of smoking or nicotine use, with potential lifelong addiction and health consequences. By making these products more attractive, the industry not only boosts their immediate consumer base but also makes quitting harder, prolonging exposure to harmful substances. Nicotine and tobacco products are highly addictive and designed to sustain use, trapping users in a cycle of dependence. Additives mask the harshness of tobacco, making it easier to start and harder to quit.
Goals of the 2025 WNTD campaign
Raise awareness: Inform the public on how industry tactics manipulate the appearance and appeal of tobacco and nicotine products.
Advocate for policy change: o measures to ban flavours and additives that make these products more appealing; o complete bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, including on digital platforms; and o regulation of the design of the products and their packages to make them less appealing.
Reduce demand: Exposing these tactics aims to reduce demand, particularly among youth, ultimately lowering their exposure to nicotine and tobacco products.
By unmasking these strategies, the campaign will to shine a light on the ways the industry markets addiction, driving demand reduction efforts and supporting long-term public health. WNTD 2025 provides an opportunity to shine a light on the strategies that perpetuate tobacco and nicotine use, and to reinforce the collective commitment to a healthier future.
Let’s stand together and make it crystal clear: No more tricks, no more traps.
No more ‘candy coating’. Removing the appeal of these products through stricter regulations is essential to protecting current and future generations from harm. Don’t let the tobacco and nicotine industries trick people with their playbook.
Ban flavours. Make flavours a thing of the past.
Regulate product design. Less appealing. Less addictive. Less toxic. Less harm.
Plain packaging. Reduce appeal, save lives.
Ban advertising, promotion and sponsorship. Out of sight, out of mind.
Tobacco and nicotine-free public places. Clean air is everyone’s right. Protect people.
Support quitting. Break the cycle of nicotine addiction.
Increase taxes. Less affordable. Less accessible.
JOIN THE MOVEMENT: TAKE ACTION.
Join the campaign to raise awareness and advocate for a healthier, tobacco-free future this World No
Tobacco Day.