‘The last line of marketing’: Covert tobacco marketing tactics as revealed by former tobacco industry employees

Abstract

In countries with bans on tobacco advertising and promotion, tobacco companies have focused their promotional expenditure on business-tobusiness relationship marketing activities aimed at retailers. However, evidence of such activities has been obtained through secondary sources only, including surveys and interviews with tobacco retailers and analyses of tobacco industry documents. To understand the breadth of promotional strategies employed in the retail sector to enhance tobacco sales, 10 semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of key informants who formerly worked for tobacco companies operating in Australia. A qualitative iterative approach was used to develop a thematic analysis of tobacco brand promotion and retailer marketing. Participants described tobacco retail marketing and promotion strategies that were categorised into three primary themes: (1) the provision of financial incentives, such as price promotions, cash payments and rebates; (2) the provision of experiential incentives, such as all-expenses paid vacations, exclusive parties and events, and (3) targeted marketing and education, which enabled retailers to market to consumers on behalf of tobacco companies. Such strategies had the ultimate objective of increasing market share and driving sales. For countries to comprehensively restrict all tobacco marketing, legislation must be introduced to outlaw these activities in tobacco advertising and promotion legislation.

Global tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship regulation: what’s old, what’s new and where to next?

“…24 Former tobacco company employees have corroborated that this type of marketing activity is of high importance in driving sales. 25 A first step in better regulating retailer incentive programmes would be to require TAPS spending disclosure and reporting in many more nations. Country comparisons could then be drawn and a far more accurate picture of how these transnational companies are promoting products globally, and how much they are spending, could be determined.…”

“…In 2016, the Canadian province of Quebec banned the offering to retailers of 'rebates, gratuities or any other form of benefit related to the sale or the retail price of a tobacco product'. 26 Scottish 27 and Australian 25 research reveals that retailers are also granted vouchers, prizes, trips, tickets to events, and invited to exclusive parties as part of retailer reward and education programmes. Globally, there is a scarcity of research and evaluation of tobacco retailer incentive programmes.…”

“…There is little evidence of monitoring or compliance in countries that assume these sorts of incentives are already captured under existing comprehensive TAPS bans, despite the lack of explicit language banning these practices. 25 Retailer price discounts can then be directly promoted to consumers at POS in countries that do not ban price promotions. These price promotions are further exacerbated by a lack of minimal floor pricing for tobacco products-a policy that has only nominal adoption globally.…”

Tobacco company agreements with tobacco retailers for price discounts and prime placement of products and advertising: a scoping review

“…Seventeen studies were conducted in the USA,6 14 17 23–36 three in Australia,37–39 two in the UK,8 15 two in South Korea7 40 and one each in Canada,41 New Zealand,42 and Indonesia 43. The earliest was published in 199114 and the most recent were published in 2020 17 25 38 39.…”

Retail endgame strategies: reduce tobacco availability and visibility and promote health equity

“…32 In addition, the retail environment remains the dominant channel for tobacco industry marketing. [33][34][35] We present a brief overview of retailer reduction and tobacco display policies, discuss considerations for design and implementation, and provide recommendations for future research and practice. Other important retail strategies (eg, non-tax mechanisms to increase price, increasing the minimum legal sales age, restricting flavoured tobacco) are discussed in the 'Tobacco and social justice' issue of Tobacco Control.…”