This Philip Morris (PM) document is a case study showing how PM uses cigarette advertising to help undermine public health messages about tobacco.
In 1995 PM planned to launch a new, humorous ad campaign for "Benson and Hedges" cigarettes.
The launch was strategically timed to coincide with the opening of new (Philip Morris-sponsored) smoking lounges in Denver's new International Airport (DIA, 1995). The inclusion of smoking lounges at DIA was quite controversial at the time, and would have been expected to draw crticism of the company.
Objectives of the ad campaign (and its timing) were to help keep PM in the driver's seat on smoking issues in Denver at that time:
"OBJECTIVES:
--Maintain control of the story and preempt potential activists' criticism of ads
--Reinforce messages of accommodating smokers.
--Preempt possible activists' claims of victory in 'changing the form of cigarette
advertising"...
--Frame appropriate messages regarding ETS and accommodation issues."
The plan included training spokespeople in advance of the ad campaign "to counter activist positions [and]...incorporate accommodation messages into discussion of campaign."
The campaign even provided PM with "hooks" to create future positive stories and promotions for target audiences. Burson-Marstellar (B-M, the public relations company that generated the media plan) suggests that, in the wake of the ad campaign, "Specific accommodation storylines can be developed for pitch to women's book, gay books, restaurant magazines/inserts, etc." B-M also suggested that PM "[Develop] promotions to 'make smoker feel like a hero'".
PM has long held that the intent of its cigarette advertising is merely to convince smokers to switch brands, but this document shows an intent that is actually quite different. The cigarette company used this ad campaign:
1) To take the focus off tobacco as a public health problem and turn the discussion instead into one of economics and "accommodation,"
2) as a shield to pre-empt criticism of its actions and products,
3) To minimize public health messages about tobacco and secondhand smoke and prevent these messages from taking the forefront,
3) To provide the company with access to major media in a way that gave the company control over the coverage it received.
4) To launch other, similar efforts and campaigns around the country and to obtain further "positive" coverage for the company's brands and smoking in general.