Tobacco Marketing Plain Packaging

Tobacco use is a modifiable risk factor that is directly related to chronic diseases such as stroke, cancer and heart disease. The economic impact of tobacco use is significant, with an estimated 7.5 billion spent in Ontario alone in 2011 . Increased efforts by the government to reduce marketing venues have been implemented to attempt to reduce the incidence of smoking .
In marketing a product, we often refer to the four ‘Ps’: price, promotion, product, and placement. The significance of marketing and how it affects our purchasing power has changed throughout the years. Marketing has now become a science as advertisers are conducting research on their demographics to know what would entice those individuals to buy their products . This has become an implicit science; the population may not recognize how much marketing impacts their consumption behaviours . Prone (1993) described how packaging redesign alone for US brand Rice-A-Roni increased sales by 20% within one year, and argues that packaging design can yield a higher return on investment than any other forms of marketing mix strategies.
Increased marketing restrictions on tobacco products have resulted in the cigarette package being the last and only means of advertising . The goals of advertising via cigarette packages are twofold, point of purchase advertising and communicating a brand image. The implementation of the tobacco retailer display ban in Canada has restricted point-of purchase display of tobacco products. The Tobacco Industry’s internal documentation found concrete proof of research into the characteristics of the pack that would entice certain individuals to purchase their brand over another . Evidence has been found that the packaging itself has been created to communicate characteristics of the cigarettes to their audience .
Smokers keep their packs close to them and reveal them countless times daily. Such behaviours expose other consumers to “incidental consumer brand encounters.”

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