Virginia Slims Opinion Poll Public Relations Plan

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

Virginia Slims Public Opinion Poll Public Relations Plan

This PR plan from Philip Morris is an example of how a corporation creates "news" and pushes it into major media outlets to benefit sales of its products, in this case cigarettes. PM's Virginia Slims Opinion Poll Public Relations Plan shows Philip Morris positioning itself as the nation's "single most authoritative expert on women's issues" by releasing the results of a company-sponsored "Virginia Slims" women's poll to the media with expertly orchestrated PR fanfare. One of the public relations objectives for this contrived media event was to:

Position the Virginia Slims Opinion Poll as the nation's most authoritative chronicler of women's issues and opinions -- only Virginia Slims has the history, the heritage and the scope.

PM used Adele Scheele, Ph.D., a graduate of the University of California Los Angeles, as a celebrity media tour spokesperson for the event. PM touted her as a "A career strategist and women's issues expert," who "has also published articles in Working Woman and McCall's." PM said, "She delivers her thoughtful insights to problems women experience in the workplace with conviction and warmth."

A second media tour spokesperson was Judy Kuriansky, Ph.D., author of articles in Ladies Home Journal. She had appeared on Donahue, CNN, Sally Jessy Raphael Show and CNBC.

A short note appears after these women's names in this marketing document which reads,

"Please note: Personal interviews were conducted with Adele and Judy -- both support VS [Virginia Slims] and are comfortable with tobacco issues."

Key poll findings to be released to the media included largely negative-sounding "poll" results which seemed to reinforce women's general feelings of stress, helplessness and a lack of control over their lives, for example, "More than half the women think men are basically selfish and self-centered, up 15% from 1990," "Women's satisfaction with specific areas of their lives has declined since 1990," "84% of women feel they face more restrictions than men, even with changes," and "78% of women feel too much pressure in juggling work, family and marriage."

PM gave the "exclusive first release of the entire poll for publication the day of official announcement" to the Associate Press, and gave gifts to media representatives attending press conferences. One gift was a kaleidoscope that said, "Thank you for sharing the many changing views with us..."

PM took this "women's issues" show on tour to a host of major news markets in the U.S., including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Miami, Atlanta, Cleveland, and many more. Interestingly, San Francisco and Los Angeles in this document were marked with asterisks (*) that denoted, "Sensitive markets with large anti-contingents." In these markets, PM Media Affairs Department recommended using a "more strategic, targeted approach rather than a broad-based pitch to media. In addition, outlets with any call-in segments in these markets will be avoided."

Title VIRGINIA SLIMS OPINION POLL PUBLIC RELATIONS PLAN
Date 19961000/E
Type MEPL, MEDIA PLAN ; PHOT, PHOTOGRAPH
Bates 2044417376/7386
Collection Philip Morris
Pages 11
URL: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/mag36e00

<tdo>search_term=target market women</tdo>