Tag Archives: plain packaging

Plain packaging for tobacco: wine branding down the gurgler?

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The Australian community is becoming increasingly aware – through government-funded education, mass media and social media – of how the over-consumption of alcohol and fast food impacts on human health. These industries should be wary of government lobbying from the health industry to propagate legislation similar to the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act, with a warning shot across the bows being draft legislation introduced into the New South Wales State Parliament late in 2012 intended to minimise the advertising of alcohol products.

As the draft legislation has been proposed by an independent as a private members bill, it seems unlikely it will obtain support from one of the major parties. But as this legislation would have an acute impact on the wine sector, as well as the increasingly strong ‘craft beer’ sector, these industries will be well served by proactively mitigating the likelihood of potential legislative battles occurring.

Attractive wine labels, going beyond information about the variety or the producer, are used to entice unsophisticated or new consumers. This is one of the primary methods by which the wine sector sells its products in a highly-competitive domestic and export market.

Research suggests many consumers believe wine label art is reflective of the quality of the wine inside the bottle and, as a consequence, marketing and merchandising play a role equal in importance to the manufacturing process.

By reason of the community’s understanding of the dangers of smoking, media coverage of the 2012 challenge to the Constitutional validity of the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act in the High Court of Australia was largely sympathetic to the Federal Government and commentators tended to agree with the Court’s decision. The most high profile of all of the observers, the World Health Organisation, openly welcomed the decision and called on the rest of the world to follow Australia’s tough stance on tobacco marketing.
The Court found in a six-to-one decision this was ‘no acquisition of intellectual property rights’ – specifically, trademark rights – by the Government. Registered trademarks protect the value of brands. By highly regulating their use to the point of non-use, the collective value of those brands is decimated within Australia.
The High Court decision is a precedent which would permit similar regulation to the Act in other industry sectors. Information about wines is already subject to regulation in Australia, and severe sales regulation in countries such as Canada and Sweden, but all of this existing regulation does not significantly affect the creative expression of the brand.

Simply put, wine companies would not sell as much product if it was compelled to be sold in olive labels with plain font describing the makers’ name, the brand name, wine variety and other details.

The enormous problems faced by the tobacco industry in coping with plain packaging would be a very significant burden upon the much more fragmented alcohol industry, which has many small participants unable to afford neither a legal challenge nor a strict compliance program. Wine, beer and spirits makers need to be prepared to address this potential regulatory risk to their marketing strategies.

However, while there is some concern in the food manufacturing and alcohol industries about the implications for consumer products which have adverse health-related side effects, potential government intervention in the marketing of other products where there are health-related concerns is a slippery slope argument: there is no logical inevitability alcohol and food will be impacted on by the plain packaging legislation.

Additionally, because of the obvious health issues associated with tobacco, there was a notable absence of assistance to the tobacco industry by the alcohol and food industries to fight the case against plain packaging. This was possibly because of fear of consumers’ reactions to any alignment of interest with the tobacco industry over a health-driven law. Equally, politicians will be well aware of the non-alignment positioning with tobacco the fast food and alcohol industries have taken.

Finally, the Federal Attorney General has issued a statement the Federal Government will not be pursuing plain packaging legislation for the alcohol or snack food industries. The longevity of this policy remains to be seen.

 

Consumption taxes, ‘fat tax’ possible as self-regulation scrutinised

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Australian marketers are being exposed to heightened regulatory risk as a global push to replace self-regulation with stronger government oversight takes hold.

Attention increasingly turns to the role of taxes in dealing with both consumption and product disposal, according to the key findings of a report from Political Monitor, which warns the concept of a ‘fat tax’ is not inconceivable as governments move to recoup costs created by marketing and placate public policy activists.

The political risk firm’s ‘Politics of Marketing’ identifies increasingly vocal public advocacy groups as a driving force behind calls for an end to self-regulation in favour of co-regulation or full government oversight.

Political Monitor’s managing director Damian Karmelich says a new culture of activism is emerging in which governments are prepared to act when marketing practices are in conflict with public policy objectives.

“The Commonwealth Government’s introduction of plain packaging laws for cigarettes was a powerful demonstration of the political risk confronting brands”, Karmelich says. “Right or wrong the decision demonstrated both the ability and willingness of government to act when it believes marketing practices, in any form, are in conflict with public policy objectives.”

The report found that while some marketers – particularly those involved in the food and alcohol sectors – are already managing a number of these challenges, the push for regulation is likely to escalate in those sectors while at the same time spread to new areas. In particular, environmental objectives are likely to become central to the debate.

“Governments around the world have been quite successful at recovering a large proportion of the health care costs related to marketing through the use of taxation”, said Mr Karmelich. “This trend is likely to escalate as ‘fat taxes’ gain in popularity, despite some recent setbacks in Europe.”

“However, governments have been far less successful at recovering the environmental costs of marketing, particularly those related to product disposal. This is likely to emerge as a key issue for governments as they seek to manage environmental concerns within a tight budgetary environment.”

Furthermore, there is an increasing emphasis on regulations that cover the entire product lifecycle, not just consumption, primarily to limit the environmental impact of products.

Political Monitor believes that a number of these goals will find support among Australian public health and consumer advocates and that local marketers can expect to see an increased push for regulatory oversight in the near future.

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‘Fishing bum’ cigarette box wraps foil plain packaging laws

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A Gold Coast company is attempting to foil tobacco plain packaging laws by creating wrap around stickers for cigarette packs.

Box Wrap, a sticker manufacturing company, created the workaround for smokers who dislike the mandatory olive green packaging and gruesome health warnings, which came into effect on cigarette packs on 1 December.

“People feel they have had their choice ripped off them. We are just a sticker company that is no different from a cigarette case,” says the company’s managing director Anthony Do Rozario.

Promoted with the slogan ‘It’s your box, it’s your choice’, the stickers allow smokers to cover up the plain packaging with a range of skins, including the Australian flag and an image of the backside of a scantily clad woman holding a fishing rod. (“Everything from fishing bums to Aussie flags,” Do Rozario says.)

Box Wrap will launch a website and social media campaign for the stickers today, according to the Gold Coast Bulletin. They will initially be sold online for $8.75 for packs of six, with hopes of making them available alongside cigarettes in retail outlets.

The company has filed for a worldwide patent for the stickers, as other countries consider introducing similar laws.

The Federal Government’s Department of Health and Ageing is yet to respond to questions over the legality of the stickers, but will certainly by looking at them closely.

 

No more cigarette advertising? Never mind, there’s an app for that

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By Becky Freeman, Lyndal Trevena and Nasser Dhim, University of Sydney.

“Every time a door closes a window opens.” This clichéd greeting card sentiment must be the catch-cry of tobacco marketers globally. Ever since tobacco advertising was first forced off our television screens in the 1970s, the tobacco industry has been at pains to splash its logos and brands just about anywhere it can.

Public health officials and governments have never been able to keep up with determined and inspired cigarette advertising executives.

No more roadside billboards? No worries – we’ll make our shop displays even bigger and more exciting! No more magazine ads? We’ll sponsor sport and music festivals instead! No vouchers, prizes, giveaways, contests, or freebies? Ok, we’ll buy a starring role for our cigarettes in movies!

It’s not surprising then that tobacco product promotions have wormed their way on to our mobile phones through app stores. With Smartphone sales and mobile Internet use skyrocketing globally, it just makes good business sense to take advantage of this highly unregulated medium.

Devotees of the most popular cigarette brand in the world, Marlboro, for example, can pay just 99 cents to decorate their phones with the infamous red chevron.

While it could be completely feasible that the Marlboro global brand owner, Philip Morris International, is not at all connected with this app, they do not appear to have taken any steps to prevent app developers from abusing their trademark. Given how forcibly Philip Morris defended its trademark rights in the Australian High court over plain packaging this seems strangely inconsistent.

Tobacco industry defenders will undoubtedly contest that any move to regulate content on app stores is tantamount to gagging the most vulnerable citizens who dare to defy the powerful nanny state. When the simple truth is, tobacco advertising laws must be adapted to keep up with new media.

Distinguishing commercial speech, bought and paid for by the tobacco industry, from the private voices of citizens who favour smoking is a cornerstone of all tobacco advertising laws. There is no suggestion that anyone be prevented from distributing pro-smoking content online, or through app stores, that is not sourced from the deep marketing budgets of the tobacco industry.

Many countries which have enacted tobacco advertising bans state that they also include all forms of Internet-based advertising. But, there is very little evidence on whether or how well these sorts of provisions are actually being enforced. Australia’s recently enacted ban of online tobacco advertising has yet to be tested.

Intriguingly, plain packaging may prove be the most viable solution to the end of tobacco industry efforts to continue to find loopholes in advertising legislation. If consumers are no longer familiarised with iconic brand imagery through cigarette packages, then apps like the one above lose all their meaning.

All too often we read news stories of the Internet, and social media in particular, of being the source of all evil in today’s society. Facebook has been blamed for everything from causing asthma attacks to breaking up happy marriages. However dismissing this issue as yet another case of a hysterical reaction to new technology would be to accept the tobacco industry refrain that it is a legal industry like any other. There is no other industry that kills half of its best customers.

Indeed, app stores can also be a fantastic resource for health promoting activities. But for every positive app such as RunKeeper there is a 101 Drinking Games, self-described as the ‘#1 Drinking Game app! To help you get smashed!!!’

Research on Internet content regulation has failed to address the global nature of the online world, so international collaboration on Internet regulation is imperative. The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is an ideal mechanism to exchange analysis and information on emerging technologies and best practices for online tobacco advertising bans.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.The Conversation
Read the original article.

Health Minister: last-ditch cigarette marketing ploy a “sick joke”

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Health Minister Tanya Plibersek has called a last ditch marketing tilt from Imperial Tobacco, which carries the tag line ‘It’s what’s on the inside that counts’ on packaging of its cigarettes, the “ultimate sick joke”.

The campaign seeks to downplay the impact of plain packaging legislation, set to come into effect on 1 December, by telling smokers that the product is still the same and showing the drab brown packaging peeled back to reveal the current branded packaging.

In a statement, Plibersek compared the campaign’s message to what goes on inside the bodies of smokers – diseased lungs, hearts and arteries. “For a company to have produced packs that contain the line, ‘It’s what’s on the inside that counts’, must surely be the ultimate sick joke from Big Tobacco,” she said.

“Smoking related diseases kill 15,000 Australians a year and the Government is determined to reduce the pain and suffering caused by this deadly product.”

A statement from Imperial Tobacco said the interim packets before the plain packaging becomes mandatory in December was to advise “adult smokers” of Peter Stuyvesants brand cigaretts that the brand will soon change colour.

“Essentially, this is a mechanism to provide factual information about upcoming legislative changes to adult consumers of the Peter Stuyvesant brand of cigarettes,” a spokeswoman says. “It is also important to inform our adult consumers that the product itself will remain unchanged.”

Plain packaging will start to arrive in stores from 1 October 2012, with 1 December being the official date for compliance with the ruling. Plibersek said the Government and the ACCC will be monitoring compliance closely.

“We will be closely watching the new packages to ensure that they comply with the regulations because we know that Big Tobacco will use every trick in the book to try and get around the new requirements,” she said.

“Where we identify any examples of possible non-compliance before the implementation dates we will be letting the companies know so they can rectify any issues.”

 

The behavioural economics of plain packaging

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The Australian Federal Government has successfully withstood a High Court challenge on the constitutional legitimacy of plain packaging legislation. So with help from the field of behavioural economics, let’s now look at the behavioural legitimacy of the decision to ban all branding from tobacco packaging.

Behavioural economics

Behavioural economics is a field of study that starts with the proposition that we are all prone to make decisions that are not always in our own best interest. We sign up to gyms we don’t attend, we buy things we don’t need because they’re on sale, we volunteer our time to causes, we drive further to get four cents off a litre of petrol… we do things that an economist would say are just not rational. And smoking, something that uncontrovertibly poses a significant health risk (not to mention is very expensive), is well and truly in the irrational bucket.

Three things to be behaviourally effective

For something to be behaviourally effective – in this case getting the target to not take up smoking – there are generally three things you need to do:

  1. Make it hard: create obstacles and/or overwhelm the decision making process,
  2. make it socially unacceptable: create fear of being socially shunned, and
  3. negatively impact self identity: create dissonance between sense of self and behaviour.

 

1. Will plain packaging make it hard to take up smoking?

Behavioural economics affirms that we are programmed to find the path of least resistance. For example, having your phone with you all the time invariably means you will check your email and social networks more often. Creating a barrier to access by leaving your phone in the other room however will reduce the likelihood of incessant checking.

And so it is with smoking. There are two parts to making it hard to take up smoking.

a. Overwhelm with undifferentiated choice

Known as the ‘choice paradox’, as consumers we seek to have an array of choice only to be overwhelmed by it when it comes to the crunch. Insurance, banking and superannuation are salient examples.

Plain packaging will play a role in confusing consumer choice. Where once a smoker could easily identify their preferred brand by the packet’s colour and logo, removal of such mnemonic devices will inhibit the ease of recall and selection. This is particularly so with an inexperienced smoker who may still be in the impulse rather than addictive phase.

b. Impede ease of physical access

Making access to cigarettes more difficult is key to reducing use. Age restrictions, requiring ID, and now having the product locked away in cupboards behind counters are great strategies to interfere with ease of access.

In this regard, plain packaging in unlikely to have any incremental impact. Since the introduction of mandated cupboards, branding has been hidden from view and so the smoker has had to ask the shop assistant to find the product. While it may slow down the attendant, plain package or branded, the sale will proceed.

2. Will plain packaging make smoking socially unacceptable?

We are enormously influenced by what others do. Known as ‘herding’, ‘social norming’ or ‘band wagoning’, we tend to stay with the pack most of the time.  While we each like to think we are above average (and studies have shown that more people rate themselves an above-average driver than 50% of the population!) most of our behaviour is about adopting what is the societal norm.  Hence so many have joined Facebook and LinkedIn – check out the daily commuter cycle if you don’t believe me.

Smoking has undeniably been moved into the ‘less acceptable’ than ‘acceptable’ category, and the TV show Mad Men with its constant puffing attests to how far we’ve come in a couple of generations.

Will plain packaging increase the level of social unacceptability? No. For this to happen, we instead need to rely on continued efforts. First, the separation of areas in which people can smoke so that it is undesirable to leave the gang to go and have a cigarette. And second, society has to continue to stigmatise smoking – that means not giving it credibility in films, for example.

3. Will plain packaging negatively impact self-identity?

Each of us has a sense of who we are and spends most of our time subconsciously assessing the world for how it fits with our self belief. When something doesn’t reconcile between how we see ourselves and our behaviour, we experience a psychological tension called ‘cognitive dissonance’. Because this state is uncomfortable, we do a few things to rebalance.

Ignore the new information 

When confronted with information that we don’t like, we tend to ignore it. If you find yourselves switching off from Transport Accident Commission ads or avoiding doctor’s appointments, you’ll know what I mean. This is the trap the current grotesque ads on cigarette packets fall into – smokers simply ignore the ad.

Distort the new information to fit our self view

Ever sat in a meeting and had two people form completely opposing views on the basis of the same information? Chances are they have simply filtered it through their own internal narrative to make sense of how it fits with their existing ideas.

Modify our behaviour to fit

Least likely but possible, we can modify our behaviour if it is out of whack with how we are or want to be. Hello diets, hello gym.

The government will be hoping that plain packaging will encourage smokers (or pre-smokers) to modify their behaviour because there is no longer a brand to use as an expression of self-identity. However, I think this horse bolted when tobacco advertising was strangled years ago, and now the bigger identity at play is as a ‘smoker’, not as an ‘XYZ brand smoker’. In that respect, plain packaging will not adversely impact self identity because it’s the act of smoking that is the identity, not the brand.

Further, a probable scenario is that those who smoke will see plain packaging as a brutal attempt to thwart their freedom to choose rather than an act of good intent. This will likely incite anger and result in a recommitment to identifying as a rebel/individual/outsider.

So will plain packaging work?

Will it work? As a behaviourally strategy on its own, plain packaging has some shortcomings. Tobacco is an addictive product so the fact that a smoker’s preferred brand is now in an unbranded packet will not be enough to have them quit. But for people at the point of considering smoking, it may at least create brand confusion and limit any residual halo effect the brands may have.  The great thing is that plain packaging is not a strategy on its own, and when viewed in the context of tobacco pricing, Quit campaigns, limits on product availability and restrictions on use, we can at least be sure that every opportunity to eradicate smoking is being considered.

 

Plain packaging appeal rejected, exiling big tobacco to marketing wasteland

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Big tobacco’s attempt to overturn the Federal Government’s plain packaging laws has been thrown out in a ruling issued this morning by the High Court.

The laws, which come into effect on 1 December, will see plain packaging enforced on tobacco products preventing companies from using brand marks or logos on packs and restricting them to standardised olive green packaging.

British American Tobacco (BAT), Japan Tobacco International, Philip Morris and Imperial Tobacco Australia launched counteraction against the Government’s Tobacco Plain Packaging Act in April, arguing that it was unconstitutional to deny them the use of  trademarked material.

Witholding reasons reasons for the decision until a later date, the Court ruled against the appeal simply, indicating a majority found the legislation not contrary to Section 51(xxxi) of the Constitution.

The decision is expected to have influence on similar moves being considered in the United Kingdom and New Zealand and will set a precedent globally, barring a successful appeal from big tobacco in their last avenue of recourse – an appeal to the World Trade Organisation.

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said the victory would stop cigarette packets from being “mobile billboards” but reiterated the legislation would not extend to other categories, such as alcohol or fast food.

“Plain packaging is a vital preventative public health measure, which removes the last way for big tobacco to promote its deadly products,” Roxon said. “Over the past two decades, more than 24 different studies have backed plain packaging, and now it will finally become a reality.”

“The message to the rest of the world is big tobacco can be taken on and beaten. Without brave governments willing to take the fight up to big tobacco, they’d still have us believing that tobacco is neither harmful nor addictive.”

Read: Marketing‘s investigation into the consumer behaviour behind smoking and expert opinions on whether plain packaging will succeed.

BAT Australia spokesman Scott McIntyre said the only winners from the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act (TPP) would be criminals who sell illegal cigarettes around Australia. “We still believe the government had no right to remove a legal company’s intellectual property but BATA will comply with this and every other law.”

According to the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) the decision will have detrimental and unintended consequences on Australian retailers. “Retailers now face the costs of plain packaging transactions which will see a significant increase in the time taken to complete a transaction as all products will be near identical,” ARA’s executive director Russell Zimmerman said. “Transaction time increases are estimated to cost businesses up to half a billion dollars, which is the equivalent of 15,000 jobs.”

“While the retail industry is supportive of initiatives which demonstrate a positive effect on health, smaller retailers are simply in no position to take on costs as a result of duplicate laws which cancel each other out and bring no demonstrable benefit to public health,” Zimmerman added.

 

UK to follow Australia with tobacco plain packaging review

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In breaking news from the UK, a review into introducing mandatory plain packaging for tobacco products has been launched by the government.

The consultation, which will launch today, is being undertaken to work out whether plain packaging could reduce the appeal of tobacco, and follows the example set by the Australian government when legislation enforcing plain packaging was passed in November last year.

Health secretary for the UK Government, Andrew Lansley, has said the Government wants tobacco companies to have “no business” in Britain, according to UK Marketing Magazine (no connection to this publication).

The consultation document will reportedly claim branded cigarette packets create ‘smoker identity’, and cites a AU$92 million increase in sales of Lambert & Butler after it introduced the promotional ‘Celebration Pack’, and research that claims smoking causes 100,000 deaths a year in the UK.

The review will be undertaken without the consultation of tobacco companies, departing from the approach taken to tackle obesity health issues.

According to Marketing UK, Lansley said: “We don’t work in partnership with the tobacco companies because we are trying to arrive at a point where they have no business in this country.”

Barring a successful high court challenge from tobacco companies in Australia, plain packaging will come into play in December this year. Marketing’s investigation into the branding implications of the change for tobacco companies shows that while packaging plays an important role in tobacco sales in Australia, its removal may not be enough to stamp out smoking.

 

Cigarette plain packaging – will it work?

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This article first appeared in the March 2012 issue of Marketing magazine.

 

On the eve of a global watershed in tobacco’s history, Marketing magazine takes a look at what led to the plain packaging theory, and asks global experts… Will it work?

Both functional and aesthetic, packaging plays a critical role in communicating what a brand is all about and attracting shoppers at the moment of truth. In that split second when a shopper takes pause, packaging has the chance to sway decisions and outshine competing brands. It screams ‘pick me’, in a precisely calculated elevator pitch that hooks into its target’s hopes, wants and needs.

So when the Federal Government tabled plans to introduce mandatory plain packaging for cigarettes in Australia, it wasn’t long before tobacco companies launched counteraction. Their marketing efforts stifled by countless other regulations, packaging is one of the last means left through which they can communicate. Barring a successful High Court challenge, generic olive-green packaging plastered with graphic health warnings is set to hit shelves in December this year. Tobacco industry logos, imagery, colours and promotional text will be banned on packaging for cigarettes and other tobacco products, disarming them at the point of sale.

Since it was announced in 2010, the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act has faced fierce opposition from tobacco companies. Extensive lobbying remains ongoing and implementation of the new laws is far from assured. In April, British American Tobacco Australia (BATA), Philip Morris Asia (PMA), Japan Tobacco International (JTI) and Imperial Tobacco Australia (ITA) will take their case to the High Court, arguing that plain packaging laws are unconstitutional and a violation of intellectual property rights.

But another side to the debate rages – a debate around how effective the initiative will actually be in reducing smoking. The act of lighting up is a phenomenon with its claws still latched on to many Australians. In spite of the restrictions imposed on smokers and the tobacco trade, one in five people still smoke. It may be a pastime in decline – smoking rates have decreased by 40 percent since 1980 – but it remains the single largest preventable cause of death and disease in the country.

While the Government is certain plain packaging will work, and tobacco companies are adamant it won’t, experts are divided as to what impact it will actually have. The tobacco category is one dictated by a number of unique factors, factors that make the impact of the change hard to predict. Part of the rationale behind plain packaging is nipping the habit in the bud, by removing marketing messages that potentially stimulate trial. Many contend, however, that this will have a reverse effect, sending smoking’s image further underground and thereby creating greater allure for rebellious teens – the group upon which the future of the habit rests.

The screws tighten on big tobacco

Since the anti-smoking movement began, the image of smoking has gone from glamorous to insidious. Advertising featuring presidents, movie stars and doctors has given way to graphic imagery of dissected arteries and sponges full of tar. The Benson and Hedges One Day Internationals and Marlboro Formula One cars are long gone as the Government tightens the screws on big tobacco’s marketing efforts.

Legislation educating people on the dangers, protecting non-smokers from second-hand smoke and restricting the accessibility of tobacco first began to appear in earnest in the 1970s. Health warnings on cigarette packaging surfaced in 1973, and a ban of advertising on TV and radio followed soon after in 1976. In the 80s, the movement gathered steam with smoking banned on domestic flights in 1983 and print ads banned in 1987. The next big step came in 1992 with the passing of the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act, banning all forms of advertising apart from point of sale communications.

Standardised health warnings on packaging were introduced in 1995 and, since the turn of the century, point of sale advertising has been banned, licensing and retailing restrictions (including a ban on selling online) enforced, graphic health warnings introduced and smoking in many public places made a fineable offence.

The Federal Government has also sought to discourage smoking by raising prices via an excise tax, the most effective tactic for reducing smoking rates according to the World Bank. Through the tax, which represents around half the cost of a standard pack of cigarettes, the Government rakes in $5 billion a year.

The plain packaging contest

With legal action pending against the Government, the contest over plain packaging is still very much alive. The big four – BATA, PMA, JTI and ITA – claim that the Government is attempting to acquire, without compensation, valuable intellectual property used to identify tobacco brands.

Spokesperson for BATA, Scott McIntyre, has argued that the tobacco giant is a legal company selling a legal product. “We have consistently said we will defend our valuable intellectual property on behalf of our shareholders as any other company would,” he said in a statement. “If the same type of legislation was introduced for a beer-brewing company or a fast food chain, then they’d be taking the Government to court and we’re no different. We believe the laws are unconstitutional and invalid, and we’re obviously confident enough that we are pursuing it in the High Court.”

Lobbying from big tobacco and the Alliance of Australian Retailers (AAR) has been built around the pressures plain packaging will impose on manufacturers, retailers and consumers. The impact of the change on small businesses, such as family-owned tobacco retailers, is being used in an attempt to rally the masses to the cause. It’s claimed that many will go out of business due to increases in costs and loss of sales to counterfeit product.

Tobacconists cite significant confusion at the point of sale and inconvenience for both vendor and purchaser as serious issues. With tobacco products usually displayed out of reach, the transaction would become cumbersome without visual elements to facilitate brand recognition and sale. The AAR – a body funded by tobacco companies and formed specifically to fight the plans – also points out that plain packaging will increase stock taking times and product selection errors, and have an impact on customer service standards and local communities.

According to a recent Deloitte Report commissioned by the body, the legislation could see more than a quarter of Australian consumers abandoning local corner stores in favour of large supermarket chains.

But, above all, big tobacco questions plain packaging’s ability to nip the habit in the bud. On its lobbying website, Philip Morris International Management states that it “supports effective regulation of tobacco based on the principle of harm reduction, but plain packaging is an extreme measure unproven to have any effect in reducing smoking”.

On the other hand, the Government is adamant the initiative will effect a reduction in smoking rates, and contends that the tobacco companies know as much. Throughout the course of the debate, attorney- general Nicola Roxon has repeatedly intoned: “Let there be no mistake, big tobacco is fighting the Government for one very simple reason – because it knows, as we do, that plain packaging will work.”

Friend or foe

It is here that the dynamics of the tobacco category come into play. How influential is packaging in the category? How important is branding and differentiation for tobacco products? Will plain packaging be friend or foe? For your average consumer product, packaging is vital, but tobacco is no normal product. For those hooked on nicotine, cigarettes are more akin to a need than a want. While continued patronage from addicts is somewhat guaranteed, a change that makes trial less attractive would be a serious blow to the industry.

Investigations into the consumer behaviour behind smoking, however, suggest that plain packaging may not succeed in making trial less attractive at all. Evidence indicates that regulating packaging may have the reverse effect by enhancing the act’s image as underground or subversive, thus fuelling greater motivation for trial.

In The Tipping Point, consumer behaviour theorist Malcolm Gladwell offers a number of insights into the psyche of the smoker. He makes reference to a Harvard University study that asked smokers to guess how many years of life smoking from the age of 21 would cost them. The average response was nine years, higher than the actual number of six to seven. Therefore, Gladwell notes, smokers aren’t smokers because they underestimate the risks of smoking.

Gladwell goes on to say that many anti-smoking initiatives are unsuccessful because they target the contagiousness (the reasons people start smoking), not the stickiness (the reasons people continue smoking) of the epidemic. He believes that efforts to make smoking uncool or unappealing simply do not work, as it has never been smoking itself that was cool, but rather the rebelliousness or subversiveness of the influential peer. Restricting or legislating against smoking may only serve to make it more contagious, enhancing the image of the smoker that adolescents revere: rebellious, risk-taking and precocious. The power of the influencer may in fact be harder to undermine than the reason smoking is sticky: nicotine. And plain packaging, therefore, may only serve to immortalise the cigarette as an even greater symbol of those things adolescents aspire to.

Renowned branding expert Martin Lindstrom agrees with Gladwell. In his research on smoking, he notes how the distinct, standardised health warnings act as logos that smokers associate with the pleasure or rush they get from a hit. The ‘Smoking Kills’ messages on cigarette packs actually have the opposite effect, according to Lindstrom, making people smoke more. He also believes that smokers bury their heads in the sand, rather than absorb the gruesome imagery used on packs and in advertising. They too become a logo for the nicotine craving, one that is delivered when our guard is down, having been lowered by the trust generally associated with government health warnings.

On plain packaging, Lindstrom tells Marketing, “I do not think you will affect cigarette sales in a major way, and the reason why is not just it would become an indirect logo, but also because the cigarette companies now have a really good excuse to create even more hype around the cigarette brands. They can work on the underground part and that means they now can go out and create peer pressure, and they can create all that type of hype around it.”

On the other side of the coin, research by the British Heart Foundation has found that cigarette branding does in fact help to hook youngsters. Its recent study found that 87 percent of teenagers and young adults thought plain cigarette packs were less attractive than branded ones. One in six said they consider pack design when deciding which cigarettes to buy and one in eight admitted choosing a brand because it looked ‘cool’. Alarmingly, over a quarter of regular smokers judged one cigarette brand to be less harmful than another, purely on the basis of packaging.

Research conducted by the Cancer Council of Victoria also found that the imagery on packets was a powerful tool. Market tests conducted found that such imagery can even influence a smoker’s taste ratings of the same cigarettes when packaged differently. The Council claims that tobacco companies employ pack design and colour to communicate the impression of lower tar or milder cigarettes, while preserving perceived taste and ‘satisfaction’. They also point out that tobacco companies carry out extensive research to ensure packaging appeals to selected target groups, including young adults and women. The study concluded that pack design is an important communication device for cigarette brands and an effective advertising medium.

The future of tobacco marketing

There is evidence to suggest that the impact of plain packaging on smoking rates could go either way. While the change may help create greater mystery and appeal for tobacco products, it impacts on the product’s ability to communicate and stand out.

If plain packaging does arrive come December, a significant avenue for communication will be removed from tobacco’s repertoire. It will rob the companies of their chance to convey brand, features, benefits, selling points and other information. Differentiation would be difficult to achieve, with no means for communicating product attributes such as taste, tar levels, strength or satisfaction.

The future of tobacco promotion would rest on the few remaining avenues that are yet to be regulated. These include custom events, internet-based marketing and corporate websites, advertising in international magazines, mobile phone promotions and product placement in movies. The industry would be forced to turn to its creative side, a trait for which it is already well-known.

Lindstrom predicts that 95 percent of tobacco marketing budgets will go into leveraging the mystery and subversiveness plain packaging will afford. He believes generic pack designs will be “incredibly efficient” in elevating the cool factor associated with smoking. That which is banned is often what the young and rebellious are attracted to the most.

In essence, what the Government is attempting to achieve by introducing generic packaging is an image overhaul, transforming the act of lighting up from cool to plain. Removing the logos, imagery, colours and promotional text from packs will restrict big tobacco’s ability to entice consumers. In all likelihood, this will impact on smoking’s appeal among certain audiences. But, in a fascinating twist, the regulation may also stimulate the very thing it seeks to destroy – the image of smoking as rebellious and cool.

It’s possible that the legislation will have a reverse effect, fuelling smoking with a move chosen to help extinguish it. In a category where consumer behaviour is at its most complex, it’s possible the Government will glorify smoking with a strategy designed to make it plain.

 

What would Martin Lindstrom do?

I would go the opposite way. I would do three things if I were [the Australian Government]:

Go straight to Hollywood and make it so unpopular for actors, who are heroes around the world, to smoke on the screen, that they will never ever touch a cigarette.

If you take Leonardo DiCaprio as an example, he is almost smoking cigarettes in every movie he has produced… I’m not sure why he does it… but I don’t need to tell you that a lot of young girls still have him as a hero and, because of that, they are likely to follow him. You see that happening for a lot of actors, and my sense is that there is a lot of marketing exchange behind the scenes in Hollywood still between the tobacco industry and those actors in order to create heroes. So, I would stop that.

I would create campaigns where it becomes unpopular; it almost becomes embarrassing to be a smoker. Where you go in and do jokes around smokers. Of course, that will offend existing smokers, but do you know what? I don’t care. Because, at the end of the day, we have a whole new generation [to consider]. So, I would go in and create a reverse peer pressure.

Pack design: I’d make so random, it will change so much that there is no similarity whatsoever between the different packs. The only thing they will have in common is they’re called cigarettes. The pack will change, the colours will change, the shape will change, whatever… and, yes, it will be very difficult to execute, but at the end of the day, I would know that whenever you see this pack, there is no way your brain will link together a craving sensation whenever you see a pack, because it just can’t do it in such a short period of time.

What would Malcolm Gladwell do?

Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, believes that many anti-smoking initiatives are unsuccessful because they target the contagiousness (the reasons people start smoking), not the stickiness (the reasons people continue smoking) of the epidemic. There are two strategies that Gladwell thinks could be useful in breaking the cycle of smoking:

1) Nicotine threshold: the problem is not that people trial smoking; it’s that they continue smoking. The experience is memorable and powerful and, for those who enjoy the nicotine hit, the habit sticks. Nicotine addiction is, however, far from an instant development – it takes years of regular smoking for someone to become addicted. Research has shown there is a threshold that must be crossed before one can become addicted – usually regular smoking for two to three years. If a common nicotine threshold can be established, regulations on the amount of nicotine in cigarettes could be introduced to ensure not even the heaviest smokers exceed the addiction tipping point.

2) The correlation between smoking and depression: depression is believed to be a result of a deficiency of serotonin, dopamine and other brain chemicals that regulate mood. Along with Prozac and Zoloft, nicotine produces these chemicals in the brain. Many are using tobacco, knowingly or unknowingly, as a way of treating their depression. This is stickiness with a vengeance: not only are they are addicted to nicotine, but without it they relapse into depression. Treating smokers in a similar way to treating depression may make their habit an awful lot easier to beat.