Can quitting smoking be cooler than smoking?

Truth Initiative’s antismoking campaign was launched with the goal of making smoking seem aggressively uncool for young people. Then vaping happened.

But even addictive trends die fast, and one startup wants to fix quitting.

Making quitting cool

Nicotine replacement therapy company Jones just raised $10m for its new, cooler way to stop you from smoking, per Forbes.

• Co-founder Caroline Vasquez Huber felt the existing packaging for NRTs was “shameful” and made it look “like you have a disease.”
• Jones’ approach? Sell the same FDA-approved nicotine replacement mints, but package them with a stylish tin (alongside an app, which likely does most of the heavy lifting in getting you to quit). 
• Suddenly you’re not a smoker treating an addiction, you’re a cool person popping a cool thing from a cool box.

Not that Jones is ashamed: The company sells “quitter” merch, stamping its logo on hats, totes, and water bottles.

So it’s really just the old aesthetics of quitting that are the problem.

Quitters…

… who want to quit without looking weird may seem like a hyperspecific market, but Jones did raise that $10m and Forbes says the company is likely worth ~$45m.

• Its investors include Good Friends, a VC firm started by the founders of Harry’s, Warby Parker, and Allbirds, which says a lot about the vibe here. 
• Jones is also developing a premium $295 lozenge tin that can be worn as a necklace, which it handed out to models backstage at New York Fashion Week.

So Jones is cool, but there might be a reason why typical antismoking aids have zero vibes whatsoever: What if Jones convinces someone to pick up smoking just so they have an excuse to use it?

Obviously, that’s absurd and no one would do that, but… just please don’t.