Table 2.
Features of verbatim US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Nicotine Warning Statement Present on ENDS Ads That First Ran Either During the Six-Month Period Before or After August 10, 2018,a by medium.
| Static ads Onlyb |
Video Ads Onlyc |
Radio Ads Only |
p-value | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before (n = 166ads) |
After (n = 198 ads) |
Before (n = 16 ads) |
After (n = 49 ads) |
Before (n = 9 ads) |
After (n = 21 ads) |
||||
| n (%) | n (%) | p-value | n (%) | n (%) | p-value | n (%) | n (%) | ||
|
| |||||||||
| Ads with verbatim FDA warning present | 46 (27.7) | 167 (84.3) | 10 (62.5) | 47 (95.9) | 6 (66.7) | 18 (85.7) | |||
| Warning featuresd | |||||||||
| Location of warning | |||||||||
| Top third of ade | 35 (76.1) | 162 (97.0) | < .001 | 0 (0.0) | 27 (57.4) | < .001 | - | - | - |
| Middle third of ad | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | - | - | |||
| Bottom third of ad | 11 (23.9) | 5 (3.0) | 10 (100.0) | 2 (4.3) | - | - | |||
| Full screen | - | - | 0 (0.0) | 18 (38.3) | - | - | |||
| Text and background of warning | |||||||||
| White text on black background | 7 (15.2) | 64 (38.3) | < .001 | 0 (0.0) | 27 (57.5) | < .001 | - | - | - |
| Black text on white background | 34 (73.9) | 103 (61.7) | 2 (20.0) | 20 (42.5) | - | - | |||
| Something else | 5 (10.9) | 0 (0.0) | 8 (80.0) | 0 (0.0) | - | - | |||
| Border same color as warning text | |||||||||
| Yes | 39 (84.8) | 158 (94.6) | .083 | 1 (10.0) | 47 (100.0) | < .001 | - | - | - |
| No | 1 (2.2) | 1 (0.6) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | - | - | |||
| No border present | 6 (13.0) | 8 (4.8) | 9 (90.0) | 0 (0.0) | - | - | |||
| Warning text in same orientation as ad text | |||||||||
| Yes | 46 (100.0) | 167(100.0) | - | 10 (100.0) | 47 (100.0) | - | - | - | - |
| No | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | - | - | |||
| Timing: visual appearance of video warning | |||||||||
| Beginning third of video | - | - | - | 4 (40.0) | 19 (40.4) | 1.000 | - | - | |
| Middle third of video | - | - | - | 8 (80.0) | 1 (2.1) | < .001 | - | - | |
| Last third of video | - | - | - | 8 (80.0) | 0 (0.0) | < .001 | - | - | |
| Throughout entire video | - | - | - | 0 (0.0) | 28 (59.6) | .001 | - | - | - |
| Timing: read audio warning f | |||||||||
| Beginning third of radio spot | - | - | - | - | - | - | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | - |
| Middle third of radio spot | - | - | - | - | - | - | 0 (0.0) | 1 (5.6) | 1.000 |
| Last third of radio spot | - | - | - | - | - | - | 6 (100.0) | 18 (100.0) | - |
| No. times warning read [mean (std.)] | - | - | - | - | - | - | [1.0(0)] | [1.05 (0.23)] | .331 |
| Relative speed at which audio warning read f | |||||||||
| Slower speed than rest of ad | - | - | - | - | - | - | 0 (0.0) | 0 (0.0) | - |
| Same speed as rest of ad | - | - | - | - | - | - | 0 (0.0) | 9 (50.0) | .052 |
| Faster speed than rest of ad | - | - | - | - | - | - | 6 (100.0) | 9 (50.0) | .052 |
| Voice of narrator reading audio warning | |||||||||
| Same as voice used for rest of ad | - | - | - | - | - | - | 3 (50.0) | 14 (77.8) | .307 |
| Different than voice used for rest of ad | - | - | - | - | 3 (50.0) | 4 (22.2) | |||
Note: ENDS = Electronic nicotine delivery systems; p-values significant at 0.05 level and derived from unpaired t-test with unequal variance for continuous variables or Fisher’s exact tests for proportions, which account for small cell size.
Date at which the nicotine warning statement requirement for ENDS ads went into effect.
Static ads included non-video online/mobile, print (eg, magazines, newspapers), and outdoor (eg, billboards) ads.
Video ads included online/mobile video advertisement, online/mobile ads that contained animated graphics (eg, GIFs), and television commercials. Only the appearance and timing of visual elements of the nicotine warning statements were coded for video ads.
Proportions for warning feature categories are calculated using the number of ads with the nicotine warning statement present per each medium as the denominator.
Based on the required FDA formatting, “must appear in the upper portion of the area of the advertisement within the trim area… ” and “occupy at least 20 percent of the area of the advertisement.”.
Non–exclusive response categories to account for multiple occurrences of a nicotine warning statement in a video or a radio ad.