Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and plowing through the Sunday New York Times, when I came across this full-page ad from Philip Morris International about its Zyn nicotine pouches, which are apparently quite popular among the younger set.

Think the tobacco industry’s latest damage-control campaign can work, Doc?

– Zynterested Observer

Dear ZO,

Zynteresting indeed.

That ad comes in the wake of  this piece by Emily Dreyfuss in the Times Opinion section two weeks ago, which detailed the growing flight from vaping to nicotine pouches among teenagers and young adults.

Do you know what a Zynbabwe is? Or an upper-decky lip pillow? OK, here’s an easier one — how about just Zyn?

If you are scratching your head, don’t feel bad: Almost no adult I have spoken to has had any idea either. This is despite the fact that the nicotine pouch Zyn is a jewel in the crown of a multibillion-dollar tobacco company. Haven’t heard of nicotine pouches to begin with? Neither had I. But when I ask my 19-year-old neighbor Ian if he knows what a Zynbabwe is, I get a shocked reply: “You know about Zyns?”

Young people certainly do, Dreyfuss says, thanks in no small part to the tobacco giant’s efforts. “P.M.I. is . . . a company that has long denied it markets tobacco products to minors despite decades of research accusing it of just that. One 2022 study alone found its brands advertising near schools and playgrounds around the globe.”

Thus the full-page ads spinning out corporate eyewash such as “We restrict the marketing and sale of  ZYN to those of legal age – which is 21 in the U.S. We do not use social media influencers in the U.S.”

That, of course, is meaningless, since social media influencers in the U.S. use Zyn – prodigiously – as Sasha Rogelberg has detailed in Fortune.

Nicotine pouches, which do not contain tobacco but are slipped under a user’s lip like snus, have grown wildly popular. Over 800 million units were sold between January and March 2022, compared to 126.06 million units between August to December 2019 and beating out its competitors. ZYN shipped 105.4 million cans in the U.S. in their 2023 Q3, a 65.7% increase from Swedish Match’s 63.6 million can shipments in the same period in 2022. Philip Morris International, which owns ZYN’s parent company Swedish Match, partially attributed their $9 billion in quarterly net revenue to the “exceptional growth” of ZYN.

On social media, young people and so-called “Zynfluencers” are spreading the nicotine buzz, withTikToks using #zyn receiving over 715.6 million views to date.

Something similar happened several years ago with Juul Labs Inc., which in 2019 owned 75% of the e-cigarette market and was valued at over $38 billion, Suddenly the Food and Drug Administration was on Juul Labs like Brown on Williamson, and there were over 5000 lawsuits accusing the company of deceptive marketing and targeting of minors.  That led to a flurry of newspaper ads like this one.

The campaign worked so well, Juul has shelled out over $3 billion in legal settlements since then, and the company’s products are still in regulatory limbo.

So the Doc’s prescription for P.M.I.:  Zynvest in some malpractice insurance. Zynstantly.