UK ASA: Geekvape E-cigarette Ads Breach Tobacco Regulations

According to news from the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) on November 8, it published the “ASA Ruling on Geekvape Electronic Cigarettes (UK) Ltd” on its official website. The ASA believes that Geekvape e-cigarette advertisement promotes unlicensed nicotine-containing e-cigarettes on TikTok. Thereby it is violating the CAP Code.

KOL displaying GEEK BAR e-cigarette advertisement on TikTok.

The issue comes from a video on Tiktok from a KOL, Lucci Love’s account, @ lucci.love98, on 19 April 2023. In the video, Lucci Love opens a box of Geek Bar e-cigarettes and saying, “…  The screen text in the video showed “GeekBar Vapes”. In addition, the text at the bottom of the video reads “#e600mesh #geekbar #freshgeek #ad.”

By now, there is no response from Geekvape Electronic Cigarettes (UK) Ltd. TikTok removes the ad after the ASA questioning the video and plans to review other posts from the account.

Various Geek Bar E cigarettes ads on Tiktok

ASA: Geekvape violates the Tobacco and Relating Products Regulations (TRPR) on the advertising of unlicensed, nicotine-containing e-cigarettes.

The ASA determined that the advert breached the relevant code because it had the direct or indirect effect of promoting e-cigarettes in unlicensed media as unlicensed medicines.

In additiona, The ASA said it was concerned about Geekvape’s lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which breached Rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay) of the CAP Code (12th Edition).

“We remind them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our inquiries and tell them to do the same in the future,” the announcement said.

Therefore, the ASA finally stated that the advertisement must not appear again in the form complained of.

“We told Geekvape Electronic Cigarettes (UK) Ltd that marketing communications that directly or indirectly promote nicotine-containing e-cigarettes. And their ingredients (without a medicinal product license) should not be conducted through public TikTok accounts. We referred the matter to the CAP Compliance Team .”