NAIROBI, Kenya — A new report has raised alarm over the growing use of social media platforms by tobacco companies to target young people in Kenya, exposing significant regulatory gaps in the country’s tobacco control framework.
The findings, published by the Kenya Tobacco Industry Monitoring and Response (TIMR), reveal how the rapid expansion of digital platforms has created new marketing channels that were not fully anticipated under the Tobacco Control Act of 2007.
According to the study, 86 per cent of respondents use social media daily or multiple times a day, making platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and X highly effective tools for reaching young audiences.
The report identifies individuals aged between 16 and 30 as the primary target group, with 79 per cent of respondents indicating that this demographic is most exposed to online promotions linked to nicotine products.
Researchers found that tobacco companies are increasingly embedding promotional content within lifestyle and entertainment material, often using youth-centric branding designed to glamorise tobacco use and encourage experimentation.
Influencers play a central role in this strategy, subtly integrating tobacco and vaping products into music videos, fashion content, nightlife imagery, and everyday lifestyle posts.
The study highlights how tobacco advertising has evolved into more covert forms, making it harder for regulators to detect and enforce restrictions.
“The tobacco industry uses a variety of content types on social media, prioritising formats that are engaging, highly visual, and easily concealable, allowing promotion to be subtle yet powerful and bypass advertising bans,” the report outlines.
Photos (39 per cent) and videos (35 per cent) are the most commonly used formats, with messaging carefully tailored to resonate with younger audiences.
Among children, TikTok emerged as the most dominant platform, accounting for 50 per cent of exposure, followed by YouTube at 21 per cent. For youth audiences, both platforms accounted for 71 per cent of exposure.
The report also points to the use of viral content such as memes, challenges, and humour-driven posts, as well as hashtag campaigns and online communities that normalise tobacco use.
“ Coded language and imagery – Subtle references to vaping or smoking are used to bypass monitoring and regulatory restrictions. These techniques allow tobacco companies to evade traditional advertising bans”, the research points out.
Despite existing legislation, the report finds that digital marketing remains insufficiently regulated, creating loopholes that tobacco companies are exploiting.
Key challenges identified include the absence of clear definitions for digital marketing in current laws, limited oversight of influencer promotions, and the difficulty of regulating cross-border online advertising.
The report also flags weak age-verification systems for online sales of nicotine products, as well as the challenges posed by disappearing content formats such as social media “stories,” which complicate monitoring and evidence collection.
Stakeholders are now urging the government to urgently update legal frameworks to address emerging digital threats.
“The Tobacco Control Act should explicitly include digital marketing, influencer promotion, and sponsored content and also introduce clear disclosure requirements for paid partnerships”, the report recommends among other interventions.
It further warns of long-term consequences if the issue is not addressed promptly.
“As this study has indicated, the industry has already accessed the children and youth who have online presence. If this propensity by the Tobacco industry to target children and youths to use the tobacco and nicotine products is not addressed and mitigated upon soonest, then the adverse effects on a whole generation may be beyond rescue”.
Celine Awuor, Chief Executive Officer of the International Institute for Legislative Affairs (IILA), echoed these concerns, pointing to weak enforcement of existing regulations.
“86 pc reported having come across tobacco content online. These findings are alarming and highlight that regulations on online platforms have not been fully enforced,” she says.
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The report recommends a coordinated, multi-agency approach to tackle the issue, including the creation of a dedicated digital monitoring unit to track influencer content, hashtags, and covert campaigns.
Other proposed measures include closer collaboration with social media companies to identify and remove tobacco-related promotions targeting minors, as well as strengthening age-verification systems for online sales and delivery of nicotine products.
The findings come at a time when global health experts are raising concerns over the rising use of vaping and nicotine products among young people, driven in part by digital marketing strategies that blur the line between advertising and entertainment.
In Kenya, where internet penetration and smartphone usage continue to rise, the report underscores the urgency of adapting regulatory frameworks to keep pace with evolving marketing tactics in the digital age.
