Nicotine marketing
Nicotine marketing is the marketing of nicotine-containing products or use. Traditionally, the tobacco industry markets cigarette smoking, but it is increasingly marketing other products, such as electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products. Products are marketed through social media, stealth marketing, mass media, and sponsorship. Expenditures on nicotine marketing are in the tens of billions a year; in the US alone, spending was over US$1 million per hour in 2016; in 2003, per-capita marketing spending was $290 per adult smoker, or $45 per inhabitant. Nicotine marketing is increasingly regulated; some forms of nicotine advertising are banned in many countries. The World Health Organization recommends a complete tobacco advertising ban.
Effects
The effectiveness of tobacco marketing in increasing consumption of tobacco products is widely documented. Advertisements cause new people to become addicted, mostly when they are minors. Ads also keep established smokers from quitting. Advertising peaks in January, when the most people are trying to quit, although most people take up smoking in the summer.File:20200517 192325 Commerce de tabac à Neuchâtel.jpg|thumb| Tobacco shop in Neuchâtel, Switzerland in 2020: advertisement is authorized inside the shop.
The tobacco industry has frequently claimed that ads are only about "brand preference", encouraging existing smokers to switch to and stick to their brand. There is, however, substantial evidence that ads cause people to become, and stay, addicted.
Marketing is also used to oppose regulation of nicotine marketing and other tobacco control measures, both directly and indirectly. For example, by improving the image of the nicotine industry and reducing criticism from youth and community groups. Industry charity and sports sponsorships are publicized, portraying the industry as actively sharing the values of the target audience. Marketing is also used to normalize the industry. Finally, marketing is used to give the impression that nicotine companies are responsible, "Open and Honest". This is done through an emphasis on informed choice and "anti-teen-smoking" campaigns, although such ads have been criticized as counterproductive by independent groups.
Magazines, but not newspapers, that get revenue from nicotine advertising are less likely to run stories critical of nicotine products. Internal documents also show that the industry used its influence with the media to shape coverage of news, such as a decision not to mandate health warnings on cigarette packages or a debate over advertising restrictions.
Counter-marketing is also used, mostly by public health groups and governments. The addictiveness and health effects of tobacco use are generally described, as these are the themes missing from pro-tobacco marketing.
According to a 2019 study, television advertisement for tobacco "increased the share of smokers in the population by 5–15 percentage points, generating roughly 11 million additional smokers between 1946 and 1970."
Regulation and evasion techniques
Because it harms public health, nicotine marketing is increasingly regulated.Advertising restrictions typically shift marketing spending to unrestricted media. Banned on television, ads move to print; banned in all conventional media, ads shift to sponsorships; banned as in-store advertising and packaging, advertising shifts to shill marketing reps, sponsored online content, viral marketing, and other stealth marketing techniques. Unlike conventional advertising, stealth marketing is not openly attributed to the organization behind it. This neutralizes mistrust of tobacco companies, which is widespread among children and the teenagers who provide the industry with most new addicts.
Another method of evading restrictions is to sell less-regulated nicotine products instead of the ones for which advertising is more regulated. For instance, while TV ads of cigarettes are banned in the United States, similar TV ads of e-cigarettes are not.
The most effective media are usually banned first, meaning advertisers need to spend more money to addict the same number of people. Comprehensive bans can make it impossible to effectively substitute other forms of advertising, leading to actual falls in consumption. However, skillful use of allowed media can increase advertising exposure; the exposure of U.S. children to nicotine advertising is increasing as of 2018.
Methods
Nicotine advertising uses specific techniques, but often uses multiple methods simultaneously. For instance, a 1999 advert for Virginia Slims uses many of the techniques discussed below. Its tagline read "NEVER let the goody two shoes get you down", making use of reactance; it had also been described as urging smokers to disregard health warnings. The model's gesture in the advert echoed earlier ads which made more explicit claims of voice box benefits. The 1999–2000 "Find your voice" ad campaign, of which this ad was a part, was criticized as offensive to smokers who have lost their voices to throat cancer, and as targeting minority women and seeking to associate itself with empowerment, independence, self-expression, women's rights, and sexual allure.Rebellion
Nicotine marketing makes extensive use of reactance, the feeling that one is being unreasonably controlled. Reactance often motivates rebellion, in behavior or belief, which demonstrates that the control was ineffective, restoring the feeling of freedom.Ads thus rarely explicitly tell the viewer to use nicotine; this has been shown to be counter-productive. Instead, they frequently suggest using nicotine as a way to rebel and be free. This marketing message is at odds with the feelings of smokers, who commonly feel trapped by their addiction and unable to quit. Mention of addiction is avoided in nicotine advertising.
Reactance can be eliminated by successfully concealing attempts to manipulate or control behavior. Unlike conventional advertising, stealth marketing is not openly attributed to the organization behind it. This neutralizes mistrust of tobacco companies, which is widespread among children and the teenagers who provide the industry with most new addicts. The internet and social media are particularly suited to stealth and viral marketing, which is also cheap; nicotine companies now spend tens of millions per year on online marketing.
Counter-advertising also shows awareness of reactance; it rarely tells the viewer what to do. More commonly, it cites statistics about addictiveness and other health effects. Some anti-smoking ads dramatise the statistics ; others document individual experiences. Providing information does not generally provoke reactance.
Social conformity
Despite products being marketed as individualistic and non-conformist, people generally actually start smoking due to peer pressure. Being offered a cigarette is one of the largest risk factors for smoking. Boys with a high degree of social conformity are also more likely to start smoking.Social pressure is deliberately used in marketing, often using stealth marketing techniques to avoid triggering reactance. "Roachers", selected for good looks, style, charm, and being slightly older than the targets, are hired to offer samples of the product. "Hipsters" are also recruited clandestinely from the bar and nightclub scene to sell cigarettes, and ads are placed in alternative media publications with "hip credibility". Other strategies include sponsoring bands and seeking to give an impression of usage by scattering empty cigarette packages.
Ads also use the threat of social isolation, implied or explicit. Great care is taken to maintain the impression that a brand is popular and growing in popularity, and that people who smoke the brand are popular.
Marketing seeks to create a desirable identity as a user, or a user of a specific brand. It seeks to associate nicotine use with rising social identities. It seeks to associate nicotine use with positive traits, such as intelligence, fun, sexiness, sociability, high social status, wealth, health, athleticism, and pleasant outdoor pursuits. Many of these associations are fairly implausible; smoking is not generally considered an intelligent choice, even by smokers; most smokers feel miserable about smoking, smoking causes impotence, many smokers feel socially stigmatized for smoking, and smoking is expensive and unhealthy.
Marketing also uses associations with loyalty, which not only defend a brand, but put a positive spin on not quitting. A successful campaign playing on loyalty and identity was the "rather fight than switch" campaign, in which the makeup the models wore made it seem as if they had black eyes, by implication from a fight with smokers of other cigarettes.
Mood changes
Nicotine is also advertised as good for "nerves", irritability, and stress. Again, ads have moved from explicit claims to implicit claims. Although nicotine products temporarily relieve nicotine withdrawal symptoms, an addiction causes worse stress and mood, due to mild withdrawal symptoms between hits. Nicotine addicts need the nicotine to temporarily feel normal. Nicotine addiction seems to worsen mental health problems, but industry marketing has claimed that nicotine is both less harmful and therapeutic for people with mental illness, and is a form of "self-medication". Marketing has also claimed that quitting will worsen rather than improve mental health symptoms. These claims have been criticized by independent researchers as inaccurate.It is thought that nicotine withdrawal is worse for those who are already stressed or depressed, making quitting more difficult. About 40% of the cigarettes sold in the U.S. are smoked by people with mental health issues. Smoking rates in the U.S. military were also high, and over a third started smoking after entering the military; deployment was also a risk factor. Disabled people are more likely to smoke; smoking causes disability, but the stress of disability might also cause smoking.
According to the CDC Tobacco Product Use Among Adults 2015 report, people who are American Indian/Alaska Native, non-Hispanic, less-educated, lower-income, the uninsured, and those under serious psychological distress have the highest reported percentage of any tobacco product use.
Poorer people also smoke more. When marketing cigarettes to the developing world, tobacco companies associate their product with an affluent Western lifestyle. However, in the developed world, smoking has almost vanished among the affluent. Smoking rates among the American poor are much higher than among the rich, with rates of over 40% for those with a high school equivalency diploma. These differences have been attributed to both lack of healthcare and to selective marketing to socio-economic, racial, and sexual minorities. The tobacco industry targeted young rural men by creating advertisements with images of cowboys, hunters, and race car drivers. Teens in rural areas are less likely to be exposed to anti-tobacco messages in the media. Low-income and predominantly minority neighborhoods often have more tobacco retailers and more tobacco advertising than other neighborhoods.
The tobacco industry focuses marketing towards vulnerable groups, contributing to the large disparity in smoking and health problems. The tobacco industry has marketed heavily to African Americans, sexual minorities, and even the homeless and the mentally ill. In 1995, Project SCUM, which targeted sexual and racial minorities and homeless people in San Francisco, was planned by R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.
Tobacco companies have often been progressive in their hiring policies, employing women and people of colour when this was controversial. They also donate some of their profits to a variety of organizations that help people in need.