Cohen, Joel B.
Imperial Tobacco Limited & RJR MacDonald, Inc.
Notes
Cohen appears to have referred to this report in his 1981 testimony before the National Interagency Council on Smoking and Health (about a bill to require rotating health warnings on cigarette packs). In his statement he said he prepared a report about attitudes within the context of cigarette advertising at the request of R.J. Reynolds. Cohen favored the rotating health warnings, saying he believed they would be more effective than a single warning. His statement can be seen at
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/cgi/getdoc?tid=zag41f00&fmt=pdf&ref=results
This report on the effects of cigarette advertising on consumer behavior was commissioned by Imperial Tobacco and RJR-Macdonald of Canada. It was written by Joel B. Cohen, Ph.D. (Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing, Adjunct Professor of Anthropology and Director, Center for Consumer Research) of the University of Florida. In the report, Dr. Cohen disputes the industry's oft-repeated claim that its advertising is aimed only at getting existing adult smokers to switch brands. Cohen says,
"The need to replace smokers who either quit or are casualties of smoking has led many to question cigarette industry claims that their advertising is intended primarily to encourage brand switching...the U.S. evidence indicates that the tobacco industry spends about $9 per person per day for advertising and promotion, and only 10% of smokers switch brands in an average year...Accordingly, such expenditure--purely for brand switching--would seem to be difficult to justify economically...."
[Pages 3-4]
In Section 1.40 Cohen poses the question, "Couldn't the advertising only make the particular cigarette attractive for existing smokers?" Response: "The answer is essentially 'No,'" and explains why this is the case.
Cohen ridicules the industry's claim that cigarette advertising would only appeal to adults who already smoke, saying,
"Nonsmokers, and particularly adolescents, cannot be made immune to advertising effects...[the industry's argument] is as if a magic curtain could be put in place to shield children, teenagers and others from the impact of these appeals. No convincing theoretical argument or empirical evidence has yet been introduced by the cigarette industry to demonstrate that otherwise effective advertising is mysteriously ineffective for adolescents who have yet to become smokers. Until such evidence is provided, this proposition cannot be taken seriously." [Page 8]
Thus it appears that RJR-Macdonald and Imperial hired an advertising expert who concluded that the companies' most common arguments about the reach and effects of their advertising cannot not possibly be true.