• by Steve Ellwanger , April 10, 2023

Humorous advice and artificial-intelligence apps are the latest tools being rolled out in the national effort to reduce or eliminate teens’ nicotine vaping.

The Minnesota Department of Public Health has launched a new campaign featuring an infomercial-like character called Norm Davidson, whose job is to spark tough conversations among minors and their peers about their vaping habits.

Developed by the Haberman agency, the dorky Norm character stands in stark contrast to real-world news reports chronicling the dangers of vaping—including that of a West Virginia teen whose lungs collapsed four times during his six-year vaping habit, as reported last week by The New York Post.

Seated at a desk, Norm introduces himself as the “CEO and proprietor of 1-833-HEY-NORM,” which he describes as “Minnesota’s first and only teen-focused, vape talk service.”

Then he pops up in school settings, using corny puns and jokes to “confront your friend about vaping for you so don’t have to be the buzzkill.”

The campaign concept is rooted in research showing that “This generation of kids is incredibly empathetic. They really care a lot about their friends,” Haberman creative group lead Zach Keenen tells Marketing Daily.

“Having said that, kids still care about what their friends think of them and so they don’t want to come across as uncool if they’re bringing up a topic that their friends don’t want to talk about.”

As a result, Norm is supposed to represent “the opposite of cool.”

Phone calls or texts to 1-833-HEY-NORM produce a menu of audio recordings from Norm—who is portrayed by Twin Cities comedian Tom Reed.

On the tech side, Denver-based RAIsonance Inc. and Soter Technologies of New York have just released two AI-informed apps designed to assist people who decide to quit vaping or cigarette smoking.

The MyAdvocate product line works on both Android and Apple smartphones.

Smokers or vapers who decide to quit cough into one of the apps to establish a baseline from recordings of the coughs. Subsequent coughing into the apps is tracked by an Improvement Score showing changes in respiratory function.

The MyAdvocate devices are positioned as “digital wellness applications that do not render a diagnosis or treatment advice” and thus are not considered to be medical devices by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Soter Technologies has approximately 30,000 vape detection devices in some 8,000 high schools across the United States.