Countermarketing

Countermarketing

"Over the course of more than 50 years, defendants lied, misrepresented, and deceived the American public, including smokers and the young people they avidly sought as 'replacement smokers,' about the devastating health effects of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke... They suppressed research, they destroyed documents, they manipulated the use of nicotine so as to increase and perpetuate addiction, they distorted the truth about low-tar and light cigarettes so as to discourage smokers from quitting, and they abused the legal system in order to achieve their goal -- to make money with little, if any, regard for individual suffering, soaring health costs, or the integrity of the legal system." Judge Gladys Kessler; U.S. vs. Phillip Morris et al

Each year tobacco cartel spends $160 million marketing in Arkansas, or about $18,000 an hour. Research has shown that youth are 3 times more sensitive to tobacco advertising than adults and more likely to start smoking due to marketing than peer pressure. One third of youth experimentation is attributable to tobacco industry marketing.

Understanding how the tobacco cartel promotes tobacco is integral to appreciating why counter marketing is so valuable in tobacco control.

The notorious Joe Camel campaign increased RJ Reynolds market share for youth monumentally while adult market shares remained static. The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement forbade the tobacco companies from marketing to children. Between then and 2005 marketing budgets almost doubled to $13.8 billion annually in sophisticated strategies most likely to affect youth: point of purchase advertisement and placement, and discount promotions reducing the price. Manipulating product placement in stores, where kids are most likely to frequent, places tobacco advertising at eye level for a child or immediately adjacent to candies or snacks. Cigarettes are promoted in sexy attractive packaging in fruit and candy flavors in collectable hip hop promotions. Tobacco advertising often blankets a retailers' landscape with promotions for cheaper tobacco attuned to kids' limited disposable income.

Most heinous of tobacco marketing efforts are the 'Trust Us' campaigns disguised as seeking to reducing youth tobacco use that have actually been shown to increase initiation.

“Furthermore, youth- and parent-focused anti-tobacco advertising campaigns sponsored by the tobacco industry have been shown to actually increase youth tobacco use. Youth exposed to these ads are more likely to report greater intention to smoke in the future and more positive feelings toward the tobacco industry than those who were not exposed.” p. 32 Health Communication Interventions - 2007 CDC Best Practices

Tobacco marketing outspends prevention $13 to $1 in Arkansas.

The industry is quite comfortable portraying tobacco addiction as edgy and prohibited. Advertising campaigns with sexy young models claim to be targeting an adult market share while fully aware that youth are more likely to be attracted to brand name products. The evidence remains that even today 9 out of 10 nicotine addicts start as teens largely as a result of tobacco cartel marketing and promotion.