Tobacco Documents Online

This confidential internal Philip Morris marketing plan gives an overview of PM's business objectives for 1990-1994. It makes several interesting points.

The plan reveals PM's conclusion that smoking bans tend to decrease smoking incidence (that is, decrease the number of people who start to smoke) but that they do not "significantly affect consumption" of cigarettes "partly due to anticipatory smoking.

As PM puts it in this report:

"Consumer research indicates that the increasing number of smoking restrictions on smokers has a negative impact on incidence, but does not significantly affect consumption partly due to anticipatory smoking."

PM's plan also states that "The greatest challenge to the tobacco industry is altering the public's inaccurate perceptions of both the dangers of environmental tobacco smoke and of tobacco's social costs."

The report also indicates PM's intention to "stop the trend of tax increasing ballot measures," and to "develop evidence to support industry positions on environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and the social costs of smoking.

This marketing summary shows which demographic groups in the U.S. tend to smoke which Philip Morris brand. The summary uses a system called "Prizm Clusters" which classifies smokers by similar social group. The groups are defined by nicknames assigned to them based on smokers "life-style clusters." Some names given to these groups of smokers are as follows:

Blue Blood Estates Money & Brains Furs & Station Wagons Pools & Patios Gray Power Coalburg & Corntown Shotguns & Pickups Bohemian Mix Back Country Folks Hard Scrabble Public Assistance

According to documents, the Prizm system apparently came into use around 1986.

This marketing manual prepared for the Philip Morris Tobacco Company shows who in the U.S. tends to smoke what brand of cigarettes. The manual classifies smokers into social groups, and the groups are described by nicknames assigned to them based on their "life-style clusters." The interesting part is the names given to groups of smokers:

Money and Brains Furs and Station Wagons Shotguns and Pickups Norma Rae-ville Hardscrabble Bohemian Mix God's Country Towns and Gowns Black Country Folks Public Assistance

Describes per capita cigarette consumption among people 15 years of age and older in various countries around the world.