Philip Morris is here to help you quit
January 3, 2005 8:30 pm by kruegerThis is not a new ad for Philip Morris. It’s part of an ongoing PR campaign. The fact that it’s running at the time of the DoJ trial, however, is probably not an accident. Very little of Philip Morris’s PR happens by accident. It’s also not an accident, of course, that it’s New Year’s, with a tie-in to resolutions.
What this particular piece of PR aims at: projecting an image of Philip Morris as honest and responsible. Philip Morris as part of the solution, not part of the problem. Helpful Philip Morris.
What the PR will therefore never mention: the tobacco industry fights successful quitting.
For example: at this very same time of year, New Year’s, the time of resolutions, the tobacco industry steps up its cigarette advertising, research finds:
Somehow Philip Morris’s ad never mentions that. No, we’re the good guys.
Or how about when Philip Morris pressured companies to water down marketing of quit-smoking products:
Nope, Philip Morris’s ad in People doesn’t mention that either.
And where does Philip Morris’s stand on smokefree places, which are known to help people who want to quit be successful? It must be for them, right? Wrong: it fights them every step of the way, because it makes more money without them:
“Financial impact of smoking bans will be tremendous - three to five fewer cigarettes per day per smoker will reduce annual manufacturer profits a billion dollars plus per year.”
“A Smokers’ Alliance: draft,” Philip Morris internal document, July 1, 1993. Bates Nos. 2025771934-2025771995.
Another fact not mentioned in Philip Morris’s People ad.
OK, how about engineering its product for addiction? Without a doubt Philip Morris could help a lot of people be successful quitting. All it has to do is stop engineering its product for addiction: nicotine manipulation, ammonia, and so on — it doesn’t have to do any of that. It could stop any time it wanted. Is that in Philip Morris’s future?
The ad is silent on that.
In fact, the ad never even mentions nicotine, addiction, addictive, drug effects.
Which brings us to what’s likely the second PR aim: undercut the facts of addiction by downplaying them in discussions of quitting smoking. Frame quitting smoking as merely a “decision”. Undercut the reality that Philip Morris’s product is addictive as heroin or cocaine by uttering time-tested PR that avoids the comparison.
For example: “millions of people have quit” is directly from old tobacco industry PR. The only difference: in the old days, the industry would then say “so it can’t be addictive”. Today, that is left unsaid — but instead implied, and pushed along by happy talk: “millions of people have gone before you and succeeded” and “find your own path to success” and “easy access to a wealth of expert information”. The most the ad can say is “quitting smoking is hard”.
This brings us to what’s probably the third aim of the PR: frame the problem as “smoking” not as Philip Morris product. Distance Philip Morris from the problem — as if cigarettes fell from the sky and people smoked them, never having been designed or engineered for addiction, never having been marketed or promoted, no one spent $12 billion last year making them look sexy, accepted, and cool.
So for example: the ad says “quit smoking” and “quitting smoking” a total of 5 times. It never mentions product once.
It also never mentions a single reason to quit.
That suggests a fourth aim of the PR: be ineffective at motivating quitting.
For example, the ad never mentions that quitting saves lives. Odd: it’s true, and a compelling reason to quit. But the ad never mentions it. The ad never mentions death, disease, disability, lives cut short, kids growing up without Moms or Dads — the ad doesn’t mention a single reason to quit.
For my money, this is world class PR. It should be. It has been put together by top talent, well paid, and well versed in painting Philip Morris as the good guy. Philip Morris wants to help you quit.
The reality the PR doesn’t mention: Philip Morris, and the rest of the tobacco industry, is every day sabotaging quitting. Cigarette ads pushed up at New Year’s. People who want to quit can’t get away from smoking, in workplaces, public places, everywhere they go. Cigarettes designed to deliver measured doses of nicotine in every puff, in its most addictive form.
The PR never mentions that. The PR frames the situation in a way that makes Philip Morris look good: quitting is a choice, it may be a problem that quitting is hard, and you know what, Philip Morris is part of the solution!
January 4th, 2005 at 5:00 pm
It’s good to see this important “trial update”.
Perhaps the webmaster can dedicate a page of *Tobacco on Trial* for “I hate the tobacco industry” purposes?
January 7th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
The trial is not all about what happens inside the courtroom. If it were, Philip Morris would save millions of dollars and not bother running all those magazine and TV ads timed to run during the trial.
My item is intended to show the connections between the trial, Philip Morris’s recent PR, and its overall PR design and goals.
For instance, in the trial Victor DeNoble is about to testify on addiction, nicotine, and engineering of tobacco product for addiction. Is it an accident that recent Philip Morris PR downplays nicotine addiction? Probably not. Is it a coincidence that it’s running now? Probably not. Is Philip Morris throwing its money down a hole by running this particular ad in major media? That wouldn’t be my guess.
My guess is Philip Morris aims to drown out the facts coming out of the trial. My guess is for every news report the public sees covering DeNoble’s testimony, the public will see 10 Philip Morris ads. Those ads will be filled with happy talk about quitting. Those ads will omit all mention of nicotine, addiction, and Philip Morris engineering of product for addiction.
That’s the trial connection.
January 10th, 2005 at 8:56 pm
“My guess is for every news report the public sees covering DeNoble’s testimony, the public will see 10 Philip Morris ads.”
*******
Good point. So why don’t you actually cover DeNoble’s testimony? Are you even attending the trial? Isn’t that the whole point of this website? I was under the impression that this site was a forum to cover the trial, rather than a springboard to launch polemics against industry marketing practices. Oh well. . .fooled again.
Getting back to the trial for a moment, your observations about PMUSA’s ad campaign are quite interesting, but frankly irrelevant. Do you think PMUSAs ads constitute ongoing legal fraud as the government (ridiculously) alleges? Do you think Judge Kessler is watching these ads or that they will even be admitted as evidence during the trial?
I for one, do not. Elementary criteria for fraud have not been met. You may not like their PR campaign but I see no evidence of overt deception in the ads you despise. The ads may softpedal quitting and not even mention addiction, but I don’t see how anyone could watch them and come away with any conclusion other than that cigarettes are harmful and quitting smoking is a good idea. If tobacco once denied that smoking was harmful, they sure aren’t denying it any more.
Relevant to the trial, with PMUSA actively advertising in the national media that smoking is harmful, and encouraging people to quit (however obliquely), the gov’ts allegation that tobacco has engaged in an ongoing conspiracy to hide the risks of smoking from the public becomes more and more absurd. Yes. . .they’ve hid the dangers of smoking so well that they are telling people to quit in a national media campaign!
Is PMUSA’s ad campaign purely self serving? Of course it is. (As if that’s a shock). Is it racketeering? Nope. Not even close. Again, relevant to the trial, I’m still waiting for the gov’t to produce any kind of recent advertisement targeted at children. I’m waiting for them to produce a recent public statement from the industry denying that smoking is risky/dangerous. These sorts of things would be interesting, damning evidence. In fact, if tobacco actually is doing the kinds of things the gov’t claims, they should be trivial to produce in court to show the world. The gov’t has had 5 years of preparation, spent untold millions of the taxpayers dollars, and has spent 12 weeks presenting its evidence. So where are they?
To paraphrase another popular PR campaign, where’s the beef?
January 11th, 2005 at 1:17 pm
> If tobacco once denied that smoking
> was harmful, they sure aren’t denying
> it any more.
“When an industry has been lying for more than half a century, then announces it is going to tell the truth but only tells a fraction of the truth, the impact can be as bad as or worse than the original lie.”
“Philip Morris wants you to believe that it is now open and candid, allowing customers to make fully informed decisions, but in reality they have cleverly muddied the waters further…”
American Council on Science and Health
http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/newsID.461/healthissue_detail.asp
> I see no evidence of overt deception in
> the ads
Then you’re looking for the wrong thing. Philip Morris PR is much too clever to fall into overt deception.
Instead, it muddies the waters. Tells a fraction of the truth. Frames the situation in ways that make it look good. And drowns out the truth, the facts that don’t make it look good.
> [where is] any kind of recent
> advertisement targeted at children
Been in a convenience store lately? Seen the POS advertising? Tobacco’s new billboards.
Care to estimate how many Marlboro logos and ads an American kid sees by the time he’s 18?
Seen a recent issue of People? Rolling Stone?
http://tobaccofreekids.org/reports/addicting/
Who are candy-flavored cigarettes for?
Who does hip-hop appeal to?
http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/reports/targeting/
http://tobaccofreekids.org/Script/DisplayPressRelease.php3?Display=472
> [where is] a recent public statement from
> the industry denying that smoking is
> risky/dangerous.
http://democrats.reform.house.gov/Documents/20040827162948-44223.pdf