Rio Pushes Back on E-cigarette Marketing
How the Brazilian city is countering deceptive industry tactics, with support from the Partnership for Healthy Cities
Electronic cigarettes are rapidly gaining ground among Brazil’s youth. To push back, Rio de Janeiro launched a bold new evidence-based communication campaign in May 2025 that is aimed at exposing and countering the industry’s calculated targeting of young people.
Finding Young Voices
Because the Rio campaign was built to resonate with young people, the city started out by seeking to better understand their perspectives. This involved a qualitative study surveying residents aged 15 to 25 and parents of young people in the same age range.
The findings were alarming: Many focus group participants reported discovering e-cigarettes through influencers on Instagram and TikTok who spread the false narrative that the devices are harmless. The research also revealed that many parents lacked awareness of their children’s vaping habits or believed e-cigarettes posed minimal or no health risks.
One of the campaign’s most powerful visuals was a colorful lollipop blasting open to reveal a core of toxic chemicals of the kind found in e-cigarettes—specifically, ingredients found in chemical weapons, herbicides, cancer-causing metals, and formaldehyde, the chemical used to preserve corpses.
The result was a campaign that uses youth-oriented social media tools like Instagram Reels and mixes evidence-based public health messaging with bold images and language mirroring how young people speak to each other online. In addition to social media, the new campaign is highly visible at the city’s VLT light rail stations, on newsstands and in public health clinics throughout Rio.
How has the campaign performed so far?
One of the campaign’s biggest successes has been its strong engagement: It reached over 42,000 accounts and more than 55,000 views on Instagram in its first day. In just a few weeks, it engaged hundreds of thousands of residents across Rio.
One social media video in the campaign that was created with RAP da Saúde, a group of young health promoters, gained over 100,000 views. This visibility helped spark a citywide conversation around Rio’s smoke-free and e-cigarette-free restrictions and positioned the city government as a leader in protecting public health.
Many parents are not aware of the many risks that vaping represents to their children's health. We want to create a space for dialogue and reflection on health, promoting safer and healthier choices for future generations.
A city and national commitment
The Rio e-cigarette campaign builds on years of work by the local government to reduce tobacco-related harms, especially at high-visibility moments like Carnival. Rio’s teenage focus is a long-term strategy: This year’s campaign followed a very popular in 2024 (see below) where a young actor delivered a chillingly honest “how-to” on hooking teens on e-cigarettes—sweet flavors, sleek designs, and addictive nicotine. Commentary on e-cigarettes from a young influencer who goes by Manuela Cit and has 2.5 million followers was another big part of the 2024 campaign (see her reel here).
A strong foundation of national law empowers these efforts; one of the city’s main goals has been to improve compliance with these restrictions through a combination of enforcement and communication. Last year, Brazil updated 2009 e-cigarette restrictions by banning the manufacture, sale, distribution, storage and advertising of these products.
In April 2025, the national government ordered platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Mercado Livre to remove all tobacco-related ads, reinforcing the urgent need for action.
A 2025 campaign poster in the heart of Rio catches the attention of pedestrians with an unsettling message – what’s inside your e-cigarette could be killing you. By placing health warnings in high-traffic areas, the city brings science-based truths into everyday life.
Rio hopes to position itself as a model for other cities committed to preventing a new generation from falling into the e-cigarette trap. In a recent op-ed co-authored with New York City, the two health commissioners argued that to counter Big Tobacco's deceptive strategies, cities need to take the lead.
Related
World Health Organization report on how the tobacco industry captures young customers.
This briefer describes the harms of e-cigarettes and how the tobacco industry is deliberately and aggressively marketing these products to make them attractive to children and young people.
Bengaluru makes strides to comply with state-level and national smoke-free laws