The Wine Cooler Cigarette

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

Wine Cooler Cigarette

This memo shows that Philip Morris (PM) planned to get around a ban on advertising and promotion of cigarettes in Singapore by first introducing a wine cooler with the same brand name as the cigarette they wanted to introduce. The wine cooler was to be manufactured by PM's winery in Australia and distributed prior to the introduction of the cigarette. It was to be targeted towards the audience at which PM was aiming its new cigarette, to generate name recognition within this group for the brand's name prior to the cigarette's release:

As you are aware, we cannot advertise cigarettes via traditional media vehicles in Singapore. Due to this government restriction, we will be using a brand diversification strategy to create awareness and visibility for the Alpine brand name. We plan to accomplish this objective by introducing a wine cooler called Alpine...The wine cooler campaign will run approximately four to six weeks prior to our cigarette introduction which is planned for September 1...

This is a demonstration of cigarette company creativity in finding ways to circumvent bans on advertising and promoting of cigarettes.

In addition, page four of the document contains interesting statistics about Singapore smokers, and what PM considers to be a legitimate target market in Singapore. The ages of Singapore's smoking market are broken down into categories, with PM labeling the youngest group as age 16-25. In 1982 smokers in Singapore were 91% male and 7% female. In 1982, 35% of households in Singapore made below $1,000 S (Singapore dollars) per year, 50% made $1001-2,000 S per year, and PM planned to introduced the Alpine cigarette at a price of $2.50-2.60 S. At the lower price, a 2 pack a week (not a day, but a week) addiction would cost a Singapore citizen making $2,000/year about 13% of his or her annual income.

Title ALPINE PROJECT: LANDOR BRIEF (DRAFT)
Date 19860000/E
Type MEMORANDUM; BRAND PLAN
Bates 2504047606/7611
Collection Philip Morris
Pages 6
URL: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/wav19e00

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