The tobacco industry and young people

Publicly, the tobacco industry has always claimed that it does not seek to recruit children to smoking. Previously confidential tobacco industry documents reveal, however, that the recruitment of under 18s to smoking has long been critical to the industry's ongoing viability. [1]

Since the late 1980s the industry has begun to increasingly target 18 to 25 year olds in its marketing. In 1989 Philip Morris International went so far as to refer to 18 to 25 year olds as the company’s “key target group”. [2] The reason for the increased focus on 18 to 25 year olds may be explained by a recognition that people in this age group are still vulnerable to taking up smoking. Also, young adults often serve as role models for adolescents. As one tobacco control advocate put it:

“Since teens aspire to be older and more mature than they are, recruiting young adults to smoke your cigarette brand is perhaps the best way to try to communicate that your brand is the in-brand”. [3]

The young have therefore been the target of extensive tobacco product marketing. [4, 5, 6]

Given that traditional forms of tobacco advertising are now banned in Australia, tobacco companies have cynically developed non-traditional “under the radar” methods of marketing cigarettes to youth. [7] This fact sheet briefly describes these methods.

The new tobacco marketing

Non-traditional tobacco marketing methods aimed at reaching the youth market include:

• “Stealth marketing”. Typical stealth marketing activities include the presence of cigarette sales promotions at youth-oriented events and venues including:
  • music festivals such as Homebake, Livid and Big Day Out
  • fashion shows and dance parties
  • pubs and nightclubs. [8]
    
    
• “Guerrilla marketing”. Typical guerrilla marketing techniques include commissioning graffiti, paying teenagers to talk to their friends about a product and creating an event or website that is clearly identifiable with a particular brand without using specific brand imagery. Guerrilla marketing by tobacco companies is well developed and documented in Australia. [9]
  
  
• Trade parties - a loophole in 1992 Commonwealth legislation allows for advertising or promoting to those involved in manufacture, distribution or sales of tobacco products. A recent local example was British American Tobacco’s funding of a series of trade parties for hospitality industry personnel at Sydney’s fashionable Home nightclub. [10]
  
  
• Point of sale displays of tobacco product can serve many of the functions of traditional advertising, and there is “strong evidence” that point of sale displays, may entice children and young adults to experiment with and continue tobacco use. [11]

Tobacco industry “smoking prevention” programs

The tobacco industry’s “Youth Smoking Prevention” programs comprise mainly of media campaigns that are designed, according to the industry, to convince underage consumers that smoking is for adults only. These programs have been found to be ineffective as youth smoking prevention strategies. [12]

The real intentions of the programs, it would appear, are to improve the industry’s public image and to create a political environment that is more favourable to the industry. As one tobacco company document entitled “Youth and Smoking Plan” stated:

Efforts such as these significantly enhance our relationships with legislators … It also puts the antis (anti-smoking groups) on the defensive and forces them to expend their resources fighting our agenda, rather than pursuing their own. Furthermore, the goodwill gained in these efforts will help us in other legislative battles. [13]

Smoking in movies

The tobacco industry has a long history of product placement in youth-appealing movies. Product placement in this context is the provision of product or money by tobacco companies to film producers or actors in exchange for favourable portrayals of the product or its use. Some tobacco companies have stated that they no longer engage in this practice however cigarette branding continues to appear in movies.

There is a substantial and still growing body of evidence that smoking in film has become a significant factor influencing youth smoking uptake.

For information on the ways in which smoking in movies contributes to youth smoking see The Cancer Council’s Smoking in Movies web pages at http://www.cancercouncil.com.au/editorial.asp?pageid=1409

References

1. Cummings KM, Morley CP, Horan JK, Steger C, Leavell N-R. Marketing to America’s youth: evidence from corporate documents. Tobacco Control 2002;11:i5-i17.
2. Carter SM. From legitimate consumers to public relations pawns: The tobacco industry and young Australians. Tobacco Control;12:iii71.
3. Cummings KM, Morley CP, Horan JK, Steger C, Leavell N-R. Marketing to America’s youth: evidence from corporate documents. Tobacco Control 2002;11:i5-i17.
4. Ling PM, Glantz SA. Why and How the Tobacco Industry Sells Cigarettes to Young Adults: Evidence From Industry Documents. American Journal of Public
   Health 2002;92(6):908-916.
5. Ling PM, Hafez N. How Philip Morris built Marlboro into a global brand for young adults: implications for international tobacco control. Tobacco Control
   2005;14:262-271.
6. DiFranza JR, Wellman RJ, Sargent JD et al. Tobacco Promotion and the Initiation of Tobacco Use: Assessing the Evidence for Causality. Pediatrics 2006;117(6): e1237-e1248.
7. Carter SM. From legitimate consumers to public relations pawns: the tobacco industry and young Australians. Tobacco Control 2003;12:iii71.
8. Soulos G, Sanders S. Promoting tobacco to the young in the age of advertising bans. NSW Public Health Bulletin Volume 15, Number 5-6, May-June 2004.
9. Carter SM. Going below the line: creating transportable brands for Australia’s dark market. Tobacco Control 2003;128(Supp iii):iii87- 94.
10. Tobacco promotion targets pub trade. Taglines November/December 2006. Cancer Council New South Wales.
11. NSW Health. NSW Tobacco Action Plan 2005-2009 – Background paper. Sydney; 2006.
12. Wakefiled M, Terry-McElrath Y, Emery S, Saffer D, Chaloupka F, Szczupka G, Flay B, O’Malley, Johnston L. Effect of Televised, Tobacco Company-Funded Smoking Prevention Advertsing on Youth Smoking-Related Belifs, Intentions , and Behaviours. American Journal of Public Health December 2006, Vol 96, No. 12.
13. Philip Morris (company). Youth and Smpking Plan (memorandum) 21 February 1990. Document posted at http://tobaccodocuments.org/landman/2048143730-3732.html (accessed 21 August 2007)