nicotine addiction is for the young
Noticed: 28 May 2026
Location: Northern Line, TFL
health and wellbeing
health and wellbeing
This advert seems pretty insignificant at first. It is not pushing a new product, nor are the marketing strategies too modern either, with their signature green coating and a pretty bog-standard promotion ‘save up to £2500 per year!”
Nicorette is a household name in the UK for Nicotine Replacement Therapy, and will have been advertised this publicly, in this fashion, for some time.
But what does strike me are two things. Unlike Lilly, for example, they do not use health in this marketing strategy whatsoever. There are no clear encouragements to quit smoking, despite that being plausibly a good argument for purchase of their products. There is no demonisation of tobacco, e-cigarettes, and as I say, nothing to elucidate the health risks. In fact, all they really say is, we have a new lozenge for you guys to try -*cheesy grin. *
Secondly, the model struck me for her youth and aesthetic. It immediately reminded me of a hoarse-voiced, ex-private school, Russell Group university student or graduate in her choice of clothes, hairstyle, and joyful expression. Perhaps she got hooked on baccy at school or between lectures. Perhaps she just vapes, like 5.5 million people in the UK do today.
But my point is, perhaps Nicorette are gearing their advertising towards the most unserious generation to date, whose education in the risks of nicotine addiction has clearly not completely worked.
Without getting too anecdotal, the dangers of smoking feel like one of the only things I can actually remember from government mandated PSHE. We had hard-hitting biology lessons about smoking induced illnesses, taught amongst pretty graphic anti-smoking imagery. Guilt inducing pictures of children inhaling fumes, and decaying internal organs are some of the most direct and graphic government messages out there.
It has always been incredibly clear: smoking kills.
And I genuinely do think this was working for a while, as in 2026, the population of people in the UK who have never smoked, has engorged to 63.5%. Which is certainly attributable to decades of scientific research and public health initiatives, but was it enough?
I believe vaping threw a psychological spanner in the works. Between 2021 and 2022, disposable vapes, namely Elf Bar and Lost Mary, became widely available in the UK and took hold of a record breaking 11% of Great Britain in 2024. The ADH found that vaping among 11-17 year olds doubled from 3% to 7% by 2022, suggesting a real normalisation amongst young people.
I wonder if the fact they have been marketed as cleaner than tobacco smoke, the fact they ventured past pharmacy counters and we’re redesigned to be bright, flavoured and cheap, meant the risks were far easier to ignore.
I am therefore less surprised that this advert is young person friendly. There is little point beating this group of people over the head with health risks. Not only do most of them already know, but because the problem morphed. For the first time in UK history, there are now more people who vape than smoke, and Nicorette reflects to me - that Nicotine addiction is the already educated, young person’s habit.
