Kwechansky Marketing Research, Inc.
This document was originally found on the Brown and Williamson site and is part of the Roswell Cancer Institute collection on TDO. Please note that although the document refers to "English Youth," the interviews were performed in Canada and the report appears to have been done for Imperial Tobacco Limited of Canada. The same is true for Project Plus/Minus, which was previously noted as pertaining to industry activity in the United Kingdom, instead of Canada.
This 110-page, in-depth study of youth smoking done for Imperial Tobacco was the precursor to Project Plus/Minus (see Daily Document posting of Friday, April 13, 2001). The author states the following about recruiting participants for this study:
"The recruiting qualifications were that the respondents be aged 16 or 17, attending high school, and smokers of 5 cigarettes or more per day...Recruiting was carried out in such a mangger that the respondents had no idea the subject was to be smoking."
The interviews took place in hotels. The youngsters were recorded on closed-circuit cameras "trained at them at close range", which, according to the report, was thought to have made them nervous.
The report goes into great detail about the ages at which these yougsters started smoking (between the ages of 12 and 13), the forces that started them smoking, how their smoking fit into their school and family lives, and much more. It concludes that "In smoking among the young, "Peer influence is everything," and "...At the early stages of serious smoking, coincident with puberty around the age of 12 or 13, there is sometimes taunting and goading of those who aspire to membership in a peer circle that smokes..." and "...Submission to such pressure shows how strong the peer group conformity desire is, and how it can override all previously learned values..."
The study also found that over half the young respondents wanted to quit smoking, but says, "However, they cannot quit any easier than adults can...It is likely that few will."
In one passage, the interviewers bring up the health warnings on cigarettes with the youngsters, and reported that "In spite of believing (for the most part) that the health warnings are true, it is amazing how fatalistic these young people were about smoking and health...A few clearly did not wish to live to a ripe old age....The cases of those who actually claim not to want a long life are fascinating..."
Despite the tobacco companies current claims of having long histories of not wanting children not to smoke, this document clearly shows that the aim of these interviews was to find how to increase cigarette usage among the young:
"Ads for teenagers must be denoted by a lack of artificiality, and a sense of honesty...If freedom from pressure and authority can also be communicated, so much the better."
To give you an idea about the subject matter this lengthy document covers, I will quote part of the Table of Contents below.