Tobacco promotion restrictions: ironies and unintended consequences Janet Hoek * Department of Marketing, College of Business, Massey University, Private Bag 11-222, Palmerston North, New Zealand Abstract As the health consequences of tobacco smoking have become more apparent, governments have regulated the types of promotion available to cigarette manufacturers. Yet despite these efforts, the tobacco industry has continued to develop highly visible promotions that make greater use of youth role models and of new media known to have high penetration among youth. Attempts to reduce the impact of the tobacco industry’s promotions seem unintentionally to have stimulated the development of more subtle initiatives that are harder to regulate and that reach and influence young people even more effectively. Alternative means of controlling the health-related consequences of smoking include further promotion restrictions and tighter controls on the sale and distribution of tobacco. Social marketing programmes based on techniques developed by the tobacco industry may yet provide the richest irony: use of the industry’s own tactics to counter its messages. D 2002 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Tobacco promotions; Regulation; Legislation 1. Introduction Debate over the effects of tobacco advertising has been acrimonious and longstanding, and only under considerable legal duress have tobacco companies admitted that their marketing campaigns may have had effects beyond those initially claimed (Hastings and MacFadyen, 2000). Ever since medical evidence attesting to the effects of tobacco on health was released, tobacco companies have asserted that their promotions were designed to increase secondary rather than primary demand. In this way, they have attempted to defend themselves against allegations that their activities deliberately fostered smoking initiation among nonsmokers and, more specifically, among young people. However, medical and other interest groups greeted these arguments with open scepticism, claiming that it was impossible for the industry not to recognise the effects their advertising had on young people’s behaviour (DiFranza and Godshall, 1996; Hastings et al., 1994). From their point of view, tobacco advertising quite specifically promoted smok- ing to young people by normalising and reinforcing an unhealthy behaviour. They argued that, since smokers even- tually die (whether as a consequence of a tobacco-related illness or from some other cause), the industry continually needs to recruit new consumers. Consequently, the tobacco industry’s arguments that the effects of promotion on chil- dren and young people were unintentional seemed somewhat disingenuous (Gostin and Brandt, 1993). Despite the debate over the relationship between tobacco advertising and cigar- ette consumption, concerns that tobacco promotions fostered youth smoking prompted several governments to restrict or ban cigarette advertising. However, the industry responded innovatively to these constraints and developed new, more sophisticated, and arguably more successful, marketing strategies. Ironically, the regulatory changes introduced to limit the extent and influence of tobacco advertising seem instead to have led directly to the refinement of new ‘‘legal’’ promo- tions that have high reach among young people. This paper begins by examining marketing activities engaged in by the tobacco industry and how these have evolved in response to changing regulatory frameworks. In particular, the paper examines how changes to laws governing tobacco promo- tions have resulted in more subtle campaigns that are arguably more appealing to vulnerable groups, among which the incidence of smoking continues to rise (Laugesen and Scragg, 2001). The paper concludes that moves to control the effects of tobacco promotions appear to have unintentionally fostered the development and exploitation of loopholes that allow greater access to less-informed, and 0148-2963/$ – see front matter D 2002 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0148-2963(02)00449-6 * Tel.: +64-6-350-5583; fax: +64-6-350-2260. E-mail address: J.A.Hoek@massey.ac.nz (J. Hoek). Journal of Business Research 57 (2004) 1250 – 1257