Introduction: The tobacco industry uses package colour to convey product attributes, which can impact consumers' perceptions of products and circumvent policies designed to reduce their appeal. Using artificial intelligence (AI) guided analysis, our goal was to characterise package colour schemes for popular oral nicotine pouch (ONP) brands and examine if colour schemes are associated with ONP characteristics.
Methods: We used an AI-powered tool to analyse colour schemes of publicly available pack images of US ONP brands. We analysed pack images for the seven most popular ONP brands, and the most popular flavours and nicotine concentrations within brands, identified from US sales data (59 images total). We prompted the AI tool to provide colour scheme analysis and proportions (eg, proportion of colour).
Results: All brands used specific colours to indicate specific flavours, such as blue for peppermint, green for wintergreen and other warm colours such as red for cinnamon and yellow for citrus. Some brands used lighter colour schemes representing lower nicotine concentration and darker colour schemes representing higher nicotine concentration. On!, Zeo, Zyn and Rogue used a mix of distinct and subtle colour scheme transitions to signify nicotine concentration. Other brands like Sesh, Velo and Zone maintained uniform designs across all nicotine concentrations.
Conclusions: Our results suggest the colour scheme of some ONP packaging was designed to indicate the flavour and nicotine concentration. These characteristics may influence consumers' beliefs about ONPs, and appeal to different populations. AI tools can be valuable in the surveillance of those ONP packaging features.
Keywords: Nicotine; Non-cigarette tobacco products; Packaging and Labelling.
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