Research by Greta Hsu and Stine Grodal published in Administrative Science Quarterly gives
one answer to how a strategy of comparison can go wrong. They looked at the
growth of electronic nicotine delivery products – vape devices – and how the
makers of such products took steps to get them quickly accepted. These steps in
turn led them into a trap of their own making.
The
starting point is that the cigarette industry is large and highly profitable.
After all, even taking taxation into account, cigarettes are vastly overpriced
wrapped dried leaves. Cigarette customers are addicted customers (at least
addicted to the product category), which is even better than having loyal
customers. The only problem for cigarette makers is that the health damages are
well known, and the industry is shrinking. Smokers do not quit in great numbers
– the product is addictive after all – but more old customers die than new
customers appear.
Actors
outside the cigarette industry invented superior systems for delivering
nicotine and other flavored vapors through well-controlled electronic devices. They
then faced the dilemma of how to market this innovation. What to name it? How
to have it regulated, or try to avoid regulation? How to market it? A series of
decisions led them onto the path to “similar but better,” including naming these
devices e-cigarettes.
In many
ways this was a natural path because cigarettes are also delivery systems for
nicotine and other flavored vapors. The new systems were more complex but also
much more controllable, so they really were similar but better. But positioning
them that way instead of emphasizing distinctiveness was still a choice, and it
turned out to have a series of consequences. On the positive side, some of the
innovators got acquired by major cigarette makers and earned greatly from that.
Also on the positive side, the major cigarette makers added their marketing
muscle and made e-cigarettes widespread very quickly.
Then there
was the negative side. The e-cigarettes are efficient nicotine delivery
systems, which is a problem because the addiction to smoking comes from
nicotine, not from other parts of the cigarette. So, these devices were similar
in addictive properties and better at delivering nicotine, a point that
anti-smoking activists immediately understood. They were also quick to notice
that one maker started adding tastes that made e-cigarettes appealing to youth,
as a way of recruiting new users. As a result, campaigning against e-cigarettes
increased, and public opinion has turned against them. A good thing too,
because a while after these products became popular, a wave of deaths from vaping
THC additives showed that these products can be dangerous in ways that regular
cigarettes are not.
So “similar
but better” is a choice, and when the basic product is bad for health or for
any other part of life that we value, it is not obvious that it is the best
choice. If over time we confirm that these products actually are healthier than
regular cigarettes, then calling them e-cigarettes and making other comparisons
has been a serious mistake. An alternative name was easily available, after
all. Using e-cigarettes is called vaping (a simplification of “vaporizing”),
and the devices could have been called vapers. Instead, a vaper is now someone
using an e-cigarette. Just words, you may say, but words have consequences.
