Double win at Product of the Year awards

Vapers
22 February 2022

STORIES AND FEATURES

Double win at Product of the Year awards

22 FEBRUARY 2022

BAT has won twice at the annual Product of the Year  Awards – the largest survey of product innovation in the UK.


Our global vapour brand Vuse won in the ‘Vape & Heated Tobacco Products’, category for the Vuse ePod2. Our modern oral brand Velo landed top prize in the ‘Nicotine Pouches’ section.

Velo and Vuse were voted winners in a survey of almost 10,000 consumers and a panel of experts.

This marks a third win in the UK for Vuse with the original ePod winning in the vapour category in 2020 and the ePen3 taking the title in 2019.

Vuse became the world’s number one global vaping brand in 20211 by value share, having already been recognised as the first global carbon neutral vape brand in the world2. In 2021 Vuse also won the Sustainable Product Award at the prestigious 2021 SEAL Business Sustainability Awards.

Fredrik Svensson, General Manager of BAT UK, said: “We are extremely proud that both Vuse and Velo have won at Product of the Year in 2022 as the UK’s stand-out vaping product and nicotine pouch.

“We are pleased that UK adult consumers recognise the unique attributes and cutting-edge smoke-free alternatives we are providing to adult smokers and nicotine-users in the UK and will continue to build A Better Tomorrow by broadening the availability of our products throughout 2022.”

At BAT, we have a clear purpose to build A Better Tomorrow™ by reducing the health impact of our business. Vuse and Velo, along with our global tobacco heating product, glo, make up BAT’s portfolio of new category products, which are driven by leading-edge insights, science and innovation.

At the end of 2021, we had more than 18 million consumers of our New Category Products, a rise of 4.8 million on the previous year. We aim to have 50 million consumers of our New Category products by 2025.

Steve Marcher, Group Head of New Categories, Research & Development, said: “Our Vuse ePod2 engineering team listened carefully to our consumers and has pushed boundaries with new technical solutions.

“We adhered to the highest quality standards throughout the product development process and the team worked tirelessly to rapidly deliver this product to the market. I am extremely proud that our product excellence has been recognised in a survey of so many consumers!”

Product of the Year partners with Kantar, the world’s largest consumer research company, to conduct an independent and robust survey of 10,0003 UK consumers to vote for their favourite new product innovations.

The winners earn the right to display the iconic red Product of the Year logo.

  1. Based on Vype/Vuse estimated value share from Recommended Retail Price (RRP) in measured retail for vapour (i.e. total vapour category value in retail sales) in the USA, Canada, France, UK, Germany. These five markets cover an estimated 77% of global vapour closed system net turnover (NTO), calculated in June - July 2021.
  2. Based on ePod, ePen, eTank mini, Alto devices and consumables internal sales forecast (calculated March 2021) for 12 months starting from April 2021.
  3. 9,897 consumers partook in Product of the Year 2022 (Kantar)