Participants

Young adults (18–29 years old, N = 2100) living in the United States were recruited via Toluna, a nationwide online opt-in panel company. Toluna’s panel has been utilized for recruiting participants in many social science and tobacco control studies.^28,29 Participants completed the I-Base Survey,¹⁸ an instrument used to identify peer crowd affiliation, and a questionnaire about their tobacco and nicotine product use and other demographic information. Participants were divided into three groups (700 each) based on their peer crowd affiliation and its corresponding risk of tobacco use and distinctive visual style (Figure 1): Mainstream (low tobacco use risk, low stylistic distinctiveness), Young Professional (low tobacco use risk, high stylistic distinctiveness), and HHP (high tobacco use risk, high stylistic distinctiveness). Hip Hop, Hipster, and Partier represent different lifestyles that were featured using independent sets of advertisements in the study design. However, they were grouped together in sampling and analyses as these peer crowds represent a smaller proportion of the population than other groups and all show a higher prevalence of tobacco use.²¹ This study has been reviewed and approved by UCSF’s institutional review board.