United Kingdom

A TikTok post promoting The Disposable Vape Store, an e-cigarette shop, was challenged by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The post featured a man standing in front of shelves of e-cigarettes talking about a new product. UK regulations clearly prohibit online advertising of e-cigarettes but allow a manufacturer to provide factual product information such as the name, content and price of the product on its own websites. The ASA concluded that marketing communications with the direct or indirect effect of promoting nicotine-containing e-cigarettes and their components which were not licensed as medicines should not be made from a public TikTok account. The ASA explained that TikTok posts can be distributed beyond the followers of a particular account and therefore was not equivalent to actively seeking out information about e-cigarettes. Thus, public social media accounts, like TikTok, are not analogous to a website, and therefore, neither factual nor promotional content for e-cigarettes is permitted. The ASA ordered that the ad not appear again in the form complained about.