Tobacco industry public relations strategies

This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

The tobacco industry has used a variety of public relations strategies to continue marketing its products despite growing awareness that they cause injury and death to consumers who use them.

Changing the focus

The tobacco industry works to shift the focus of public discussion about tobacco away from health and onto other topics. For example, a 1978 Tobacco Institute presentation about fighting a clean indoor air ballot measure in California states,

Our judgement, confirmed by research, was that the battle could not be waged successfully over the health issue. It was imperative, in our judgement, to shift the battleground from health to a field more distant and less volatile...and the best opporunity for an alternate battlefiled lay in the area of government intrusion into our lives.[1](Italicized emphasis added.)

Similarly, a 1990 Environmental Tobacco Smoke strategy document written for Philip Morris by the PR firm Burson Marstellar states,

...Equally, [these figures] reveal the source of the power of the anti-smokers as long as they can fight the cigarette wars on a battlefield of health....The industry stands somewhat flat-footed in response since it questions the fundamental promise (ie the existence of the health problem) -- a stance which puts it in conflict with the weight of public opinion.[2] (Italicized emphasis added.

Arguments regularly emerge that shift attention away from smoking as a health issue. Examples include:

• Use Libertarian leaders to shift the debate away from smoking and health (Philip Morris 1993, see page 7)
• Broaden the environmental tobacco smoke debate away from individual air pollutants and onto indoor air quality (IAQ) in general. (Tobacco Institute, undated)
• Philip Morris's "grasstops" government relations (Philip Morris, 1993) How PM shifts debate on health, taxes, advertising/marketing restrictions, cigarette-caused fires, etc.
• Advertising argumentation 53-pages delineating arguments against the regulation of tobacco advertising
• Global Argumentation Project 1990 Multi-company meeting minutes on an industry-wide project to coordinate argumentation globally.

Related Sourcewatch resources

• Chris R. Tame(Authored piece about shifting debate to where industry can win)
• Clean indoor air/ventilation(Documents about shifting the focus of indoor air quality discussions)
• Reframing the debate about taxes
• Smoking as a Property Right
• Smuggling(Documents reframing the smuggling issue)
• Tobacco industry legislation
• General tobacco industry documents about reframing the debate away from health
• Workplace smoking bans
• Youth smoking debate

<tdo>search_term=shift debate</tdo> Additional suggested search criteria include words like "reframe" and "refocus" combined with words like "debate," "policy" or "issue," to narrow results, if desired.

Countermeasures against public health

Information on industry countermeasures against public health efforts can be found by searching the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library or the British American Tobacco Document Archive using the terms "countermeasure" or "countermeasures."

• World Health Organization
• Project Mayfly(Multi-company project to coordinate global responses on health)
• ICOSI Approaches to "Social Costs" Issues(Multi-company project)
• Project Breakthrough (RJR attempt to link public health efforts to alcohol Prohibition)
• Anti-Tobacco Industry Plan (Philip Morris, divide & conquer plan for public health groups)
• Philip Morris' internal response to 1964 Surgeon General's report on smoking
• RJR's efforts to undermine California anti-tobacco ad campaign
• International Committee on Smoking Issues Working Party on Social Acceptability of Smoking 770727 - 770729
• Operation Rainmaker (Philip Morris, social acceptability/public policy project)
• Archetype Project(Philip Morris, marketing to youth)
• Project Brass(Philip Morris, secondhand smoke)
• Operation Downunder(Philip Morris, public opinion)
• Regulatory Strategy Project (Philip Morris project to craft favorable FDA regulations)
• Social Costs/Social Values Project (Multi-company project to influence public opinion favorably towards smoking)
• Operation Berkshire(Multi-company response to public health/tobacco control efforts)
• Some Thoughts On Countermeasures (BAT, 1980. Lists various routes for positively influencing public opinion about smoking, e.g., placement of cigarettes in movies, television shows; letters to the editor, selection & protection of third parties, cartoons, research)
• Global Argumentation Project

<tdo archive="us,uk">search_term=countermeasures</tdo>

Creating the illusion of support

• Front groups
• Letter writing campaigns
• Phone banks
• Use of subsidiary companies
• Petitions
• Tobacco-related ballot measures
• Advertising

Efforts to alter public beliefs about tobacco

• Editorial ads
• Expert front groups
• Public statements

Generating controversy

• Smoking and Health Proposal(Brown & Williamson, 1969 - advertising to "counter the anti-cigarette forces" by including defensive editorial text in the ads.)

Harassment and intimidation

• Hospital Strategy Plan
• Dealing with Anti-Smoker Activists (RJR, 1989)
• Claims of harassment by the tobacco industry

Media manipulation

• Smoking in the Movies
• Media manipulation in Colorado
• New Philip Morris project: "Parents for Priorities" (1993)
• Letter from Richard Hines to Matt Winokur of Philip Morris Worldwide Regulatory Affairs, 1994.
• ETS (Environmental tobacco smoke) Media Strategy (Philip Morris, 1993)

<tdo>search_term=proactive media</tdo> Additional suggested search terms to find information on tobacco industry efforts to manipulate the media can be found by searching the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library using phrases like "Proactive media relations," "Proactive media relations project," or "proactive media relations plan."

Related Sourcewatch resources

• Fox News (section on Wikipedia edits)
• Rupert Murdoch

Undermining science

Tobacco companies work in various ways to undermine science, including (but not limited to) commissioning research, hiring industry-friendly "experts" to provide public testimony, making public statements, implementing countermeasures, commissioning publications, placing opinion-editorial pieces and making public statements.

• Tobacco industry biological research

Economic arguments

• Philip Morris on the truth about the economics of smoking bans

Deflecting blame

List documents about deflecting blame away from the tobacco industry (regarding hazards or illness caused by primary smoking or secondhand smoke)

• Restaurants and Smoking Restrictions. Restaurant Program Observations and Recommendations (Restaurant workers spread disease, Tobacco Institute, 1993)
• Plans-ML(Shifting blame onto schools and day care centers for making children sick)