Comprehensive tobacco marketing restrictions: promotion, packaging, price and place

Abstract

Evidence of the causal role of marketing in the tobacco epidemic and the advent of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control have inspired more than half the countries in the world to ban some forms of tobacco marketing. This paper briefly describes the ways in which cigarette marketing is restricted and the tobacco industry's efforts to subvert restrictions. It reviews what is known about the impact of marketing regulations on smoking by adults and adolescents. It also addresses what little is known about the impact of marketing bans in relation to concurrent population-level interventions, such as price controls, anti-tobacco media campaigns and smoke-free laws. Point of sale is the least regulated channel and research is needed to address the immediate and long-term consequences of policies to ban retail advertising and pack displays. Comprehensive marketing restrictions require a global ban on all forms of promotion, elimination of packaging and price as marketing tools, and limitations on the quantity, type and location of tobacco retailers.

Marketing Practices of Vapor Store Owners

“…Vapor store advertising has moved into channels where tobacco advertising is limited or no longer permitted, as well as current tobacco marketing channels through bars and clubs, community events, and social media. 31,32 Vapor stores used local forms of print advertising. In contrast to the larger marketing budgets and national focus of the tobacco industry, vapor stores used print in local communities, such as grocery stores, pharmacies, and newspapers.…”

International Reach of Tobacco Marketing Among Young Children

“…For example, removing logos and using plain packaging could alter perceptions around smoking and lessen attraction of target groups to specific cigarette brand logos. 27,28 A second way to limit promotion would be to change the quantity, location, and types of tobacco retailers, establishing minimum distances between these points of purchase and places frequented by young children. 29 A third way to better restrict exposure to cigarette brands and smoking would be to change how onscreen prosmoking media messages reach youth.…”

Framing Pictorial Cigarette Warning Labels to Motivate Young Smokers to Quit

“…1 Tobacco companies spend billions of dollars each year marketing their products, and due to increasing marketing restrictions cigarette packaging has become a mainstay marketing channel. 2 Consequently, cigarette packaging regulations including health warning labels and standardized packaging requirements are critical tobacco control measures. Unfortunately, cigarette packaging regulations in the United States have permitted the tobacco industry to leverage cigarette packs to promote their products largely unrestricted and have remained unchanged since the 1980s.…”