Trust Us We're The Tobacco Industry - Tobacco Control Supersite

3. Advertising
The tobacco industry
has always maintained
that the only function
of advertising is to
persuade smokers to
switch between brands
and that advertising
does not affect
overall consumption.
Clive Turner from the Tobacco
Advisory Council reiterates the
industry line:
“Certainly no tobacco advertising
is concerned with encouraging nonsmokers
to start or existing smokers
to smoke more and it seems blindingly
obvious that, unless you are a smoker,
tobacco advertising or sponsorship
has absolutely no influence whatsoever
in persuading or motivating a
purchase.” 24
8
(1986)
But according to advertising executive
Emerson Foote, former CEO of
McCann-Erickson, which has handled
millions of dollars in tobacco industry
accounts:
“The cigarette industry has been
artfully maintaining that cigarette
advertising has nothing to do with
total sales. This is complete and utter
nonsense. The industry knows it is
nonsense. I am always amused by the
suggestion that advertising, a function
that has been shown to increase
consumption of virtually every other
product, somehow miraculously fails
to work for tobacco products.” 25
(1988)
Inadvertently supporting this
view is Gareth Davies, chief executive
of Imperial Tobacco, who while commenting
on a proposed advertising
ban in the United Kingdom said:
“Obviously I am very much
against anything that tries to reduce
consumption of a legal product that
is used by adults.” 26
(1997)
In fact, the industry is terrified of
not being able to advertise. According
to Philip Morris:
“Advertising is critical to our ability
to expand the geographical presence of
our brands and sustain their premium
image.” 27
(Philip Morris, 1993)
A Philip Morris document from
1990 discusses the dangers facing the
industry:
“The pressure against us is growing
at a frightening speed….It’s quite
possible that unless we change our
whole approach very quickly, and
start using our resources in a much
more intelligent fashion, we will find
that within 12 months we could well
lose our advertising and sponsorship,
and a good deal of our marketing,
freedoms in most of our major markets….Defeat,
like fear, is contagious.
Once people sense surrender is in
the air, the collapse of the whole
operation can come with enormous
rapidity. The collapse of South
Vietnam is a graphic case in point.”
The document suggests a “plan of
action for winning this war,”
including:
“Go on the offensive through
imaginative advocacy advertising
campaigns, using leading figures
around the world who will put the
best arguments on a range of issues….
Fortify and widen the range of coalitions
to oppose both advertising and
sponsorship bans.”