EnglishCigarettes – The “consumer-sponsor”
The tobacco market is a party for a few close friends
“An innkeeper must never do his accounting without his guests”. This saying today is true for everyone except Big Tobacco. Will it always be this way?
The colossi of the tobacco market have trampled consumer protection under their feet; they have penetrated the markets by smuggling their products duty-free and then, when this was accomplished, they have made collaboration agreements with governments.
The big cigarette manufacturers are making enormous profits, second only to the arms trade.
But the so-called Big Tobacco monopoly, the party for a few close friends, is really as unstable as a sand castle, because one of these days the “consumer-sponsors” are going to wake up, and they will no longer be willing to bankroll this party.
A Very “Special” business
In all manufacturing sectors, companies have to work with minimum profit margins to succeed against their competitors on the free market. But not in the cigarette sector, where there is no competition and no free market.
"Black Death" cigarettes
There are few competitors of Philip Morris, RJReynolds and BAT left today; they are mostly innocuous little companies that produce so-called generic brands.
These are “naive” products, relegated to a limited economic bracket, light years away from the flashy but subtle advertising campaigns that have brought the premium brands their popularity (and their prices).
Companies that would like to manufacture cigarettes think that they have to venture into a minefield, they imagine that competing with the sector colossi is a dream that can never come true. Even though the business is legal, no one dares to approach it.
But these are banalities and unfounded fears. In fact, it is Big Tobacco that is being left unprotected by progress and change.
The monopoly Big Tobacco has created is founded on slogans that have become obsolete and counterproductive
All of us rebel against unlawfulness, especially if is carried on with impunity and shamelessly under our noses. Sooner or later the real character of Big Tobacco will become clear, and consumers will find out the truth.
Clever and subtle, but not farsighted. The advertising image that Big Tobacco has created for itself can become outdated at any time. Its old advertising slogans have a very negative effect today: Remember Philip Morris' old statements – “a cigarette recognized by eminent medical authorities for its advantages to the nose and throat” (1939), “Not one case of throat irritation due to smoking Camels!” (1949).
Will it always be this way?
Today's advertising has not really changed much; it still has that ambiguous character that is its essence. When, back in 1960, the Philip Morris people brought out what today is considered the company's most successful slogan: “Come to Marlboro Country”, they believed, in their words, that it “would turn rookie smokers on to Marlboro”, “…it's the right image to capture the youth market's fancy”, “… a perfect symbol of independence and individualistic rebellion”.
But in America today it is even forbidden to smoke in some parks. Is it right to use the picture of one's own country to publicize such a controversial business? Isn't there perhaps justification for a class lawsuit for “public insult to the nation”?
Today Big Tobacco is not in a position to renew itself; it has a well-defined identity and any change would be a parody. Big Tobacco has closed itself up in its own trap.
The most legitimate and effective form of advertising today is no longer “Smoke, smoke, smoke”, but rather “don't give your money away to those bastards!”. This is something that Big Tobacco cannot say.
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