Ivory Coast

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

Tobacco industry activity in the Ivory Coast

A 91-page Philip Morris marketing document from 1994 mostly consists of sociological observations of the behavior and lifestyles of young male citizens of the Ivory Coast for the purpose of marketing cigarettes to this group. The paper makes some intimate observations about life in the Ivory Coast.

Buried in the document are inferences that the cigarette pack is important for developing peer pressure to smoke a certain brand. The document notes in several places that this type of marketing tool is absent in poorer countries, where smokers typically purchase cigarettes "by the stick" rather they by the pack.

The document also infers that a goal of cigarette advertising is less to influence brand choice than to stimulate increased consumption of cigarettes, a point the tobacco industry typically denies. This is evident in the following passages:

"Even if brand choices are not influenced by outdoor or POS [point of sale advertising] materials, when a smoker is just walking around there is the potential for stimulating the desire to smoke by appropriate materials. One would judge that such materials, in order to achieve that effect, should themselves show smoking."

and

"It is quite common for people when they have nothing to do, to just walk around...there are opportunities in this "empty time" to stimulate consumption using materials which show smoking as a trigger to the desire to smoke..."

Related Sourcewatch resources

• Philip Morris trademarks the name "Marley" (mentions study done in Ivory Coast)