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I
t’s a deadly jungle out there. But
it’s also business as usual for those
vape players up to the industry
challenge of the next two years.
As of August 8, vapor products are
considered tobacco products and of-
ficially operate under FDA control.
Industry supporter Gregory Conley,
president of the American Vaping As-
sociation (AVA), called August 8 “the
beginning of a two-year countdown
to FDA prohibition of 99.9-percent-
plus of vapor products on the market.”
He says that “if we do not succeed in
changing the FDA’s arbitrary predicate
date of February 15, 2007, the vapor
industry will shrink to almost nothing
beginning August 8, 2018.”
And so the industry’s
Survivor
game is
underway, with the strongest contestants
fighting and strategizing for their future,
while at the same time looking to sustain
and grow their now-risky business.
Mistic Aims for Mass Appeal
One of these “survivors in progress” is
Mistic E-Cigs, which had timing on
its side. Looking to appeal to the “mass
smoking population,” as well as the
vaping population, with an improved
experience/easier-to-use device, it re-
leased its 2.0 POD-MOD in late July
in advance of the FDA deeming rule
deadline (the concept was in the works
for months before the news of the final-
ized deeming regulations hit in May).
The system is akin to the popular K-cup
coffee machine experience; the Mistic
2.0 is a closed system with change-out
flavor pods.
The product “gives the experience,
flavor profiles and vapor production
that mod users are accustomed to, and
also provides ease-of-use to cig-alike
users who haven’t upgraded because
they didn’t want to deal with the hassle
of bottles and tanks,” explains Justin
Wiesehan, VP of marketing at Mistic.
However, it is the latter group that this
product is intentionally targeted to.
“In our sales data, cartridges are still
our best-selling items for four years; that
consumer is still out there, and they’re
not as in front of this industry as the
mod users,” says Wiesehan. “They’re not
on Instagram, they’re not going to vape
shows; that demographic is primarily in
the 45-70 age range and the majority of
them for us are women—all they want
to do is use Mistic instead of Marlboro,
and they don’t make a big fuss of it.”
He goes on to tell
Tobacco Business
International
that “everybody thinks
this industry is made up of hard-core
vapers who blow clouds and build big
old batteries and coils—that’s part of
the market, and it’s where the negative
hype unfortunately comes from. There’s
still a large part that just wants to stop
smoking. They use it and it works for
them, and they’re not out posting it on
Facebook or Twitter.” They’re also not
perpetuating the bad press—and Mistic
is looking to tap this largely untapped
market as quickly as possible.
With 9 million vapers in the U.S. and
45 million smokers, “we still haven’t
touched the surface yet,” Wiesehan
maintains. “If we can provide product
convenience that can help replace ciga-
rettes, that’s what we’re trying to go af-
Survivors
& Strategies Afoot
In the wake of the August FDA deadline, which essentially froze
industry innovation, strategy-minded vape players push forward with
survival tactics.
By Renée Covino
electric
ALLEY
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TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2016