How Big Tobacco Sells Smoking to African Women as Freedom

By Omei Bongos

In sub-Saharan Africa, smoking culture is shifting towards younger demographics and women. Transitioning from traditional menthol cigarettes, the tobacco industry has expanded its product profile to include electronic cigarettes and nicotine pouches featuring fruit and candy flavors.

These emerging products are now paired with aggressive marketing campaigns aimed at youth and women across Africa, a territory the industry identifies as a significant growth opportunity.

Cigarette and tobacco advertising has shifted from billboards and television to social media influencers, celebrity videos and proximity marketing in nightlife hotspots.

Research by Gatefield details this evolution. The study, which surveyed women across Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa and Senegal, reports that 77% of African women encounter tobacco marketing on television and entertainment streaming platforms. In Nollywood 73% of films feature smoking, with more female leads than males portrayed as the primary users.

By deliberately filling TV screens across Nollywood, streaming services, and social media with images of successful female lead characters who smoke, the industry is reframing the ideas of freedom and autonomy to recruit a new, highly profitable market segment.

As e-cigarettes and vapes continue to gain popularity on the African continent, these deceptive marketing strategies have the potential to deeply harm a new demographic and a new generation.

The tobacco industry has applied new tactics with the same goal in mind: make smoking aspirational and embed it in culture. For an evolving customer base, this takes the form of influential figures on popular platforms endorsing tobacco and nicotine products.

Taking a page from a playbook it has applied in Western markets, the industry has turned to Africa with the message that smoking is a sophisticated, liberating act associated with bold, ambitious women.

And with agreeable flavors that deliver the illusion of consuming fruit or candy vapors, the industry is marketing vapes and e-cigarettes as “harm reduction” products. However, vapes contain highly addictive nicotine and harmful, carcinogenic chemicals that damage lungs, harm growing fetuses in the womb, and damage the developing brains of young people below the age of 25.

Loopholes in tobacco control policies exacerbate this marketing trend. Nigerian law currently prohibits tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship (TAPS). However, when Nigeria enacted comprehensive bans on traditional advertising, the industry simply adapted, moving to the internet and relying on online product placement and influencer marketing to reach consumers.

In South Africa, harm reduction marketing is prevalent, and e-cigarettes have been marketed as beneficial to weight loss. Among the women surveyed in the study, South African women reported the highest tobacco and nicotine use, at 65%.

What African Policymakers can do
As the industry evolves, our laws must urgently shift. The tobacco industry’s corporate marketing has consistently outpaced public health policy. More African countries need to adopt proactive regulations that anticipate industry adaptations and reduce the need for frequent amendments to the law.

African countries must enact bold policies that consider endgame possibilities and protect entire generations from tobacco harms. In the UK, the focus has shifted from individual cessation to generational prevention, making the sale of tobacco products illegal to anyone born on or after January 1, 2009.

The Act bans the advertising and sponsorship of vapes, heated tobacco, and nicotine pouches and grants the government powers to restrict vape flavors, colorful packaging, and point-of-sale displays to eliminate their appeal to minors.

The Netherlands banned the sale of all tobacco and non-medical nicotine products in supermarkets, corner shops, and convenience stores and the sale of all nicotine pouches. They have also made it illegal to add flavors, including menthol, to tobacco.

TAPS bans must extend to encompass emerging tobacco and nicotine products across both traditional and digital platforms. Regulations need to target proximity marketing in restaurants, bars and lounges and make it harder for women to access tobacco products in social spaces.

This is especially crucial because in African countries where female smoking is largely considered unacceptable, women are more likely to smoke in social settings where they are judged less harshly.
Ethiopia provides a strong example of effective tobacco control.

The country has some of the most comprehensive tobacco control policies in Africa, with complete bans on e-cigarettes, shisha and heated tobacco products. Its policy restrictions also extend to point-of-sale promotions and cross-border digital media.

Closing digital loopholes and banning cross-border advertising will make it harder for false harm-reduction marketing to reach youth and women and prevent the normalization of tobacco use among vulnerable demographics.

To fight back against tobacco industry tactics, it is vital to implement decisive policies that block industry access to culture and the cultural figures who, more than any influencing factor, shape a generation’s way of life.

Omei Bongos-Ikwue leads the Health, Longevity & Resilient Futures domain at Gatefield.
She develops advocacy and communication campaigns that result in high-impact policy change, including the introduction of Nigeria’s first ever sugar-sweetened beverage tax in 2021 as well as programs focused on women’s health and NCD prevention.
She also leads Gatefield’s tobacco control advocacy program and supported the multi-state PACT youth hub program that mobilized youth for public pressure campaigns in Kano, FCT, and Lagos.