A research done by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids has found four tobacco companies responsible for using social media to advertise tobacco use in more than 40 countries without revealing that they financed the content. Tobacco companies were found to recruit and incentivize kids with social media making them influencers for the many cigarette brands. The influencers were found to be having a large following from the U.S. even though they were not based in the U.S. According to the report, the influencers were receiving orders on the type of cigarettes to promote, when to post for full exposure of the content and how to take natural pictures that do not look like cigarette adverts (Liang et al., 2015). In a certain circumstance, the influencers received instructions to cover the labels on health warnings that are on the cigarette packs before posting on the social media.
The failure to reveal a connection between the one selling an advertised product and the endorser including free products, monetary, business relationship violates the guidelines provided by the Federal Trade Commission (Weishaar, 2015). That is why medical groups and public health group joined the campaign for tobacco-free kids to petition the FTC and ask the agency to quickly investigate and take action against the tobacco companies for the social media advertisements which were aimed at targeting the American Youth. The investigation also revealed that there is a relationship which existed between the tobacco companies and the influencers either through public relations or direct incentives and payments. For instance, in Italy alone, the influencers got paid by a marketing agency which put on Instagram message promoting the Strike Cigarette in a campaign dubbed Like Us.
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According to the petition, the activities done by the four tobacco companies were formulated to penetrate the U.S. market since they exclusively used English language and American imagery. These campaigns had more than 8.8 billion views in United States alone and 25 billion views globally as alleged by the campaign (Weishaar, 2015). Whereas the medium has changed, the companies are still busing the same deceptive methods that they have been using for years. In 2006, there was a decision by the court which found that the manufacturers of tobacco conspired for a decade to mislead the American people (Weishaar, 2015). Whereas the tobacco companies are trying to fulfill a requirement which was ruled by the court to convey true statements about the effects of tobacco use on health, they are still using the same misleading and deceptive methods about their product. As stated by the petition, the tobacco industry has had a fraudulent past deceiving the American public and the global marketing which done through the social media has had the likelihood of exposing American teens.
The stakeholders of Tobacco Company include farmers, manufacturers, distributors, investors, regulators, tax authorities and smokers. For a long time in history, Tobacco companies have been on the forefront promoting a more glamorous and richer life through the act of smoking. The tobacco companies use attractive women, celebrity endorsements to market tobacco in media. These endorsements have in massive ways heightened the appeal of tobacco in many people. From the 1930s to 1960s, tobacco companies had the tendency of using movie stars for the endorsements of several cigarettes brands. Later, icons such as Marlboro Man convinced men to use cigarettes using exaggerated fantasies of independence and manliness (Saner& Yiu, 2017). To battle the increasing concerns about the risks of smoking, the company hired several dentists and doctors to endorse tobacco products. Many doctor friendly slogans were used to lure the public that the health risks were not as dangerous as they were portrayed. Slogans such as ‘More Doctors Smoke Camels’ were used with an aim of subduing public health by proving to people that even the physicians were smokers (Saner& Yiu, 2017). The tobacco companies continued using their deceptive tactics and portraying themselves as a stronghold of the American culture.
The company continued to promote self-determination and independence, freedom positioning itself as an American phenomenon. In the face of all these, smoking remained one of the leading preventable illnesses and causes of death in the United States. The tobacco companies had gotten billion dollars of profits in exchange for millions of deaths, tobacco addiction, and diminished conditions of health (Liang et al., 2015). Today, campaigns on health and wellness are starting to fade because of the manipulative and deceptive tactics employed by the tobacco company to market their products and get more people to be smokers. The public can, however, rattle this by educating the public at local, state and national levels about the effect of smoking and the dangers of tobacco products.
Tobacco has for a long time manipulated its history as a major strategy to keep promoting its products in the market as well as a defensive mechanism in civil litigations. The company got historians to give testimonies that the public already had the knowledge that tobacco caused deadly diseases and addiction. They further pointed out that the impact of tobacco use was a common knowledge that the public was aware of stressing that even their marketing strategies covered the public understanding of the effects of tobacco use.
There are several options that the company can use to minimize the population harm by tobacco products. The first option is to regulate the information and content about tobacco products to minimize the exposure of the population to toxins in tobacco (Saner& Yiu, 2017). The danger of tobacco can be reduced using three ways. The first way is to reduce the toxicity of tobacco per unit used. The second way is to reduce its addictiveness per unit used. By this, the company would have reduced lifetime exposures. The company should allow for progress on both the two ways. The ways in which tobacco is used affect its harmfulness. Both consumers’ behaviors and beliefs are affected by what they hear or see through mass media including the ways through which tobacco is advertised. The company should also ensure that they provide enough information during their marketing with regards to the harming effects of their products.
The consumers of tobacco do not get access to exposure reduction or harm reduction claims. For that reason, the best option of dealing with the toxicity of the product is to upgrade the standards of harm or exposure to ensure that the toxic elements of the product are phased out (Weishaar, 2015). The company should look for ways of reducing the social value for the use of tobacco by controlling the many promotions that they do on mass media. The same control should be applied to issues such as product information, packaging, and sales. Further, the company should use comprehensive and strong warning messages on the packages. In my view, there are no residual benefits gotten by keeping the direct relationship between consumers and tobacco manufacturers.
It is not easy to totally eliminate positive marketing of tobacco products. The company should work towards doing positive promotion of tobacco products by applying all the regulation principles. It is not right for the manufacturers to offer incentives directly to consumers. With regards to the allegations that were labeled against the Tobacco Company concerning the deceptive marketing strategies, the company resorted to health promotion by doing active and comprehensive awareness of the dangers and harmful effects of tobacco use (Weishaar, 2015). The company also started sponsoring public education on the effects of tobacco use by increasing consumers' knowledge about cessation methods of smoking.
The company put a more comprehensive and detailed warning about the effect of smoking on children through their brands. In my view, while the ways used by tobacco to save their reputation were reasonable, they did not deal with the harmfulness of the product which in my view should be a major concern. Even if the promotion methods of the product are transformed into more positive options, without reducing the addiction levels and the toxicity of the substance, it still becomes difficult for the people who are using it or those that are yet to begin using the product to quit or to use it sparingly. Smoking remains a deadly public health challenge all across the world. Globally, tobacco use is connected to over 5 million deaths yearly all over the world. The number of tobacco-related deaths is expected to double by the year 2020. Tobacco smoking does not only affect personal health but also has a great impact on society like reduced productivity, poverty families, damage to the environment and healthcare burden.
In my opinion, the company should have acted differently by focusing on the harmfulness of their product rather than looking at the positive promotion alone. Further, when it comes to marketing, the company should be truthful in the way that they give information to the consumers. The information should be comprehensive and clear about the harmful effects of their product. The consumers using tobacco should be able to make their choices with full knowledge of the harm that the product presents to the body without any kind of deceit or manipulation. Also, the company should stop buying physicians and other celebrities to help them in their deceitful campaigns.
References
Liang, Y., Zheng, X., Zeng, D. D., Zhou, X., Leischow, S. J., & Chung, W. (2015). Exploring how the tobacco industry presents and promotes itself in social media. Journal of medical internet research , 17 (1).
Saner, R., & Yiu, L. (2017). Negotiation and Health Diplomacy: The Case of Tobacco. In PATHWAYS TO GLOBAL HEALTH: Case Studies in Global Health Diplomacy (Volume 2) (pp. 171-209).
Weishaar, H. (2015). The Tobacco Epidemic and the Commercial Sector: Tobacco Industry Strategies to Increase Profits and Prevent Regulation. In The Tobacco Epidemic (Vol. 42, pp. 27-36). Karger Publishers.
