By Attila Honey

If the public understood what goes on behind the scenes in Big Tobacco, their hair would not only stand on end but there would be group hair loss! My childhood friend Connie has a heart of gold but, in all honesty, isn’t playing with a full deck! She began smoking because her husband, whom I always refer to as Big Foot, gave her a pink cigarette holder with her initials glued in the center. Connie fell so in love with the image of her smoking with the pink/rhinestone cigarette holder, that now she’s a certified chain smoker who levels out around 3-4 packs a day! No effort on my end can convince Connie that cigarettes will one day kill her. As a last ditch effort, I’m thinking of explaining to her in graphic detail, that if she continues to smoke cigarettes, the nicotine will cause her hooters to fall off when she least expects it! In any case, although her brain is still functioning at the elementary school level, her reasoning for smoking (outside of the pink rhinestone holder) is her perception of Philip Morris as the result of their sponsored advertising campaigns on television.

PM spends an inordinate amount of money devising ads that target that warm and fuzzy spot in viewers. Matter of fact, as a ritual in their morning meetings, I’m confident that the Philip Morris executives must pray to the cigarette god to please please dear nicotine god, please send our message straight to the very heart of that warm and fuzzy viewer!” Of course, PM probably spent another big hunk of cash on a warm and fuzzy demographic study to determine if the payout would equal the pay-in. Obviously, they received a heads up because the ads are lengthy and go into great detail as to how Philip Morris is so concerned about the health of “us folks” and how smoking is so harmful to your health. The shrewdness of this plan is – on the one hand, total genius if you are the devil - but marketing at it’s worst – if you are a viewer as naive as Connie whose chromosomes are at odds with one another!

Joshua Slavitt, Director of Policy and Programs for Philip Morris, is considered to be PM’s internal expert on what Big Tobacco refers to as the “ATI or Anti’s” (anti-tobacco industry) and their strategies. Part of Mr. Slavitt’s plan is to cause dissent among tobacco control groups by “enhancing internal conflicts” among them. In order to carry out this strategy, PM seeks out moderate anti-tobacco groups and works to enter into relationships with them and get them to work with Philip Morris in some cooperative capacity. Another strategy is to limit or redirect public health funding away from any tobacco control programs Philip Morris doesn’t like and direct it to programs they do like. For instance, Philip Morris approves programs that don’t harm cigarette sales (Duh!) or the image of smoking like youth education, preventing youth access, etc. They are mindful of any negative public perceptions and devise ways of getting around these negative images – thus the positive advertising on television. PM also works to stimulate financial investigations of public health groups in order to weaken them and challenge their so-called white hat image with elected officials and the media. The estimated start up cost for this program is $500,000 the first year.

Mr. Slavitt’s Anti-Tobacco Industry Plan goes something like this:

We have spent considerable time discussing the importance of developing a response to the anti’s. We like to call them the Anti-Tobacco Industry because they have the economic and political resources to deserve to be called an industry. (Is this guy the anti christ or what?)

. Today, I’d like to present you with a plan that will coordinate company and external resources to diminish the effectiveness of the anti-Tobacco Industry. (Make the good guys look real bad!)

. Our plan also seeks to moderate the ATI’s impact on the policy process so that we can reestablish our credibility through the initiatives that we are developing. (Going into the back door of government & infiltrating small anti-tobacco groups)

. After we have implemented these initiatives we must continue to keep pressure on the ATI so that we can restore and maintain balance in the political process and with the media. (Bad mouth the anti-smoking crowd aka American Cancer Society, etc as much as possible without receiving PPP (poor public perception)

. Just as importantly, we need a plan with obtainable goals and performance measurements that can be tracked over time. (Hey! I don’t want to spend a fortune on this plan and then have it bite me on the ass and drawing an unemployment check.

Attila Honey (check back this Friday for Part 2)