BIG INTERVIEW
MELISSA WISDOM
17 OCTOBER 2025 ASIAN TRADER 87
“It’s part of our overall positioning of how
we’re a responsible company. Our device has a
two-year warranty, so that tells you how
non-disposable it is. And then you can order a
bag online, you can send your pods off entirely
for free in the free post, and they’re recycled!”
The team is rightly proud of the redesign,
the sleek packaging, the fresh flavours and
the new launch. But then they will be in the
fray, having to confront the corrosive effects
of illicit product that seem now to be
everywhere.
A free-for-all
“Our vision for vapour is for it to be a category
that is regulated in a robust way, appeals to
adult smokers, and helps us accelerate the
switching mission and the public health
mandate of getting people to stop smoking.,”
Melissa says.
That’s what the government also claims to
want, yet instead seems set on hampering the
progress of vape with its lack of understand
ing, it’s blunt ignorance of second-
order consequences.
In tobacco, the endless taxes have
now driven even the most law-abiding
smoker to consider buying cheaper
smuggled product, while plain
packaging and various bans have
simply driven the problems of
smoking underground, where they
spread more quickly beyond the reach
of regulation. Less revenue, more
crime – much more crime: the
opposite of what government
intended.
Could such clumsiness now be threaten
ing the vape sector, too? I mention that there
is talk in Westminster of enforcing plain
packaging on vape products, in addition to
throttling the flavour range. In France last
month, the Paris bigwigs unilaterally decided
to ban nicotine pouches, without warning or
consultation. There seems to be endless
propaganda demonising vape, even though,
as Public Health England never stopped
saying, it’s at least 95 per cent less harmful
than smoking.
“I would start by saying that one of the
stats that keeps me awake at night the most in
this job, is over 50 per cent of smokers have a
misconception that vaping is at least, if not
more harmful to them, than smoking,” says
Melissa.
“You can completely see that underage use
and the illicit market, which is a problem in
the UK – not for Juul, but it’s a problem in the
marketplace – drive outcomes around how we
past, and I think looks as if it has emerged
tempered and with a sharper, more sophisti
cated edge, which is just as well as it launches
into the Wild West of vape – with illicit and
unregulated products and points of sale
running rampant alongside the responsible
and mostly corporate offerings.
“We are launching a curated, small range
of fruit flavours,” says Melissa. “You can see
we’re doing it in relatively plain packaging
versus what you’d see in what you call the
Wild West and I call the free-for-all market
today.”
Is it a conscious strategy to keep the design
and the flavours clean and calm and mature as
a counterpoint to the rainbow chaos that
harms the reputation of the sector?
“You can see that the new JUUL2 additions
are named as single fruit flavours. We are
trying to strike the balance of how we can
have sufficient appeal to adult smokers – be
cause we know the category has to be
sufficiently appealing to people to make that
switch – without appealing to youth or
non-nicotine users.”
Switching is important for Juul, and
they make a lot of their switching stats
– how many smokers they are pulling
away from the weed and onto the liquid.
“If you go to the original mission of
the company, which I guess hasn’t
changed and goes all the way back to the
founders, it’s independent, with a clear
mission to help adult smokers transi
tion – hence the passion point – and
combat underage use. That’s a very clear
single focus.”
There is indeed a singular aim branded into
Juul Labs’ products. They have JUUL2 and
that’s all – a streamlined offer, a boutique,
refined style and simple, classic flavours – in
stantly recognisable lines.
“Yes, you’re right,” she says, “Juul2 is the
portfolio and it’s our most advanced device on
the market.”
Technology with style – the Apple of vape,
then? I am just trying to relocate the brand in
the field alongside its competitors after the
hiatus. But it feels right to think of JUUL2 like
this, even though it’s just as available and
value-driven as others.
“Currently, we sell a pretty focussed
portfolio of tobacco and menthol products,
and we do very well in the segments that we
trade in,” Melissa continues. “Obviously, we
trade in small segments today because
tobacco and menthol are smaller segments in
the market than fruit flavours.”
But the new fruit flavours – Mango, Apple
Watermelon and Lychee – are now with us,
and they are ambitious, fresh-tasting items in
the cupboard of the Big Switch to attract
more adult smokers and put off the teeny-
vapers.
“We think that those naming conventions
of single fruit flavours and plainer packaging
do that,” Melissa nods. “It’s widely accepted,
with lots of different scientific and behav
ioural evidence, that fruit flavours have a clear
role to play for adult smokers to make the
switch. We know that from our own custom
ers, and we see it a lot in research and
literature.
“We’ve taken our time with it. We’ve
spent a lot of time with R and D and it is all
singular fruit, the flesh of the fruit. I was sat
on a consumer panel and someone said, ‘Oh, I
really feel like I’ve just taken a bite of
watermelon’.” Melissa beams with pride.
“We’ve got highly competitive quit rates,”
she reiterates. “But for me, it’s about how we
really focus on the tech that’s in the product.
We’ve got the best nicotine delivery. We
worked really hard at that. We then partner
that with the right e-liquids. And back to that
responsible position we take in the market
place: our tech also has some really cool stuff,
like age verification, so you can unlock it with
a single tap if you’re an age-verified user, and
it’s linked to Bluetooth. There’s an app which
is available on Android, and you can click
through and get to it on an iPhone, which
allows users to really look at their puff count
and their usage. We also have a unique ID chip
in the pod that will only work in the device.”
So, security and responsibility built in – is
facial recognition or fingerprint release next?
“There’s a ton of tech that’s in the device,”
Melissa continues, “both in terms of the
delivery and the effectiveness it gives to the
user, hence the successful quit rates.”
And they are green, too, having estab
lished a firm relationship with a company
called TerraCycle for recycling Juul Labs
products.
What keeps me awake
at night is that over 50 per
cent of smokers think
vaping is at least, if not
more harmful to them,
than smoking.