Tobacco On Trial

Philip Morris is here to help you again, this time with kid smoking:
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/041013/135502_1.html

The occasion for the press release? Well, the cited Philip Morris “research” isn’t new; it’s from 2003. Nor is the message new, nor the website, nor the booklet. In fact, the timing of this press release is most likely the trial.

Polish the Philip Morris image when it needs it the most: when ugly facts about Philip Morris and the tobacco industry are coming out in trial and getting coverage.

The PR is very good stuff. On the surface it’s all about Philip Morris helping out, helping parents who don’t want their children to smoke. How is Philip Morris helping? Why, with research, a study on causes of kid smoking. The research finds two causes: peers and parents. The research doesn’t find that cigarette advertising and promotion is a cause. Oddly enough, the research didn’t look at that.

Of course, this is anything but odd. It’s the PR design in a nutshell. The Philip Morris research finds every other reason kids smoke, every other possible cause. It never finds that Philip Morris is a cause. It never finds that anything Philip Morris does is a cause. It never looks for that.

$11 billion of tobacco marketing, making cigarettes and smoking look sexy, cool, fun, relaxing, good times, accepted, glamorous — that has nothing to with kid smoking? Philip Morris knows it’s not credible to outright deny that, so it seldom does. Instead Philip Morris PR talks about every other possible cause.

So the PR design is probably: shift the focus, shift the blame. Talk about kid smoking in terms of every other possible cause of the problem. Shift the focus away from Philip Morris as part of the problem. This also fits nicely with framing Philip Morris as part of the solution.

So: kid smoking a problem? It’s the parent’s fault, it’s the peers, it’s the kid’s friends who smoke, it’s society, it’s stress in the kid’s life — it’s any and every other possible cause, other than Philip Morris. It’s everyone else’s fault.

So the PR never mentions a massive marketing campaign Philip Morris runs, spends billions on, making cigarettes and smoking look cool, sexy, accepted, attractive:

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/factsheets/Tobacco_Industry_Marketing_Factsheet.htm

http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=44462

http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/12/2/184

http://www.ash.org.uk/html/conduct/html/tobexpld3.html

Could this have something to do with kid smoking? In fact be a cause of kid smoking?

Philip Morris research never mentions this, never searches there for a possible cause of kid smoking.

Independent research finds, not surprisingly, that cigarette promotion is a cause of kid smoking:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=9480360&dopt=Citation

Philip Morris PR doesn’t attack this research. Instead it just doesn’t mention it. The PR design is probably to shift the focus so the question is never asked: is Philip Morris a cause of kid smoking? Could $11 billion of product promotion have any effect? The PR shifts the focus, looks every place other than Philip Morris.

This is not a new PR strategy for the tobacco industry. For decades the industry used the same strategy to shift the focus on smoking and cancer. The industry pushed “research” that looked for every other possible cause of cancer: stress, nutrition, genetics — anything and everything but the sponsor’s product. The PR design wasn’t to deny that smoking caused cancer, but to shift the focus to every other possible cause of cancer. And of course it wasn’t that were no other causes of cancer. It’s that the PR shifted the focus away from the leading cause of cancer death in America: tobacco product.

So: it’s everyone else’s fault there’s kid smoking. The PR says Philip Morris can help, with ideas on how to talk to your kids, be a good parent, help your kids withstand peer pressure to smoke. This shifts the focus and shifts the blame. By talking of everything the parent can do, the PR subtly but effectively shifts the blame to the parents. By talking of peer pressure, the PR likewise shifts the blame to the kid’s friends. The PR focuses on what everyone can do except Philip Morris.

What the PR never mentions, what the PR is designed to shift the focus away from: Philip Morris marketing that appeals to kids; Philip Morris engineering of product for addiction; tobacco ads that kids get exposed to every day.

http://tobaccofreekids.org/reports/addicting/

If Philip Morris really wanted to help with kid smoking, it would kill its Marlboro ads. Research shows these ads affect kids more than adults.

If Philip Morris really wanted to help with kid smoking, it would stop engineering its product for addiction. Research shows that experimentation turns into addiction very quickly for kids.

If Philip Morris really wanted to help with kid smoking, it would axe its point of sale ads at retail locations:

http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/3/315

The helpful folks at Philip Morris won’t do these things. Why not? Wouldn’t it help reduce kid smoking?

Philip Morris research won’t ask that question.

Philip Morris PR will try to shift the focus away from even asking that question.

By shifting the focus to every cause other than Philip Morris.

And by shifting the blame to everyone other than Philip Morris.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 13th, 2004 at 6:21 pm and is filed under Notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.