Targeting of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders by the tobacco industry: results from the Minnesota Tobacco Document Depository

OBJECTIVE: The study objective was to review internal tobacco industry documents written between 1985 and 1995 regarding the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) population in the USA. These documents detail opportunities and barriers to promotion of tobacco products, as viewed by the tobacco industry and its market research firms. DATA SOURCES:/methods: Researchers reviewed tobacco industry documents from the document depository in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the tobacco industry's website, The Tobacco Archive, in a systematic fashion. A combined technique was employed using title keywords, dates, and names to search the 4(b) index. FINDINGS: A review of internal tobacco company documents reveal that during the late 1980s, the industry and its market research firms recognised the importance of the AAPI community as a potential business market. Documents describe the population growth in this community, the high prevalence of smoking in countries of origin, high purchasing power of AAPI immigrants, cultural predisposition to smoking, opportunities afforded by the high proportion of retail businesses under AAPI ownership, barriers to developing the AAPI market, comprehensive campaigns, and political and lobbying efforts. Comprehensive campaigns were designed to integrate promotion efforts in AAPI consumer, retail, and business communities. CONCLUSIONS: The documents show that the tobacco industry developed specific promotion strategies to target the AAPI population. Tobacco control initiatives in the AAPI group have been slower to develop than in other targeted ethnic groups, and may benefit by increased awareness of industry methods to promote tobacco use.     

Tobacco industry documents: comparing the Minnesota Depository and internet access

OBJECTIVE: To assess the comparability of searches conducted on two publicly available tobacco industry document collections: hard copies housed and maintained by a neutral party in the Minnesota Depository and electronic copies available through tobacco industry maintained websites. METHODS: We conducted a set of searches in Minnesota and then conducted the same searches using the industry websites. We matched documents by Bates number, weeded out duplicates, and coded documents that were unique to either collection as major, minor, or trivial. RESULTS: Among hundreds of documents produced by several searches, we found only four unique major documents in the Minnesota Depository. By contrast, we found 62 unique major documents using the websites. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that researchers can rely on industry websites while waiting for improved access resulting from searching, indexing, and document storage administered by the tobacco control community. Searching the tobacco industry websites is at least as good as searching in Minnesota and may in some instances actually be better. Four smaller subcollections, however, can only be searched by hand in Minnesota.     

Hollywood on tobacco: how the entertainment industry understands tobacco portrayal

OBJECTIVE: To determine how people in the California-based entertainment industry think about the portrayal of tobacco use in movies and on television. Specifically, to explore who decides when to include tobacco in a project; how that decision is made; what issues are considered; what messages are intended; whether and how the issue of second-hand smoke is considered; and what advocacy methods might be useful in influencing future decisions about tobacco portrayal. DESIGN: Qualitative in-depth interviews of entertainment industry personnel,with a semi-structured interview protocol to guide the interview. SUBJECTS: 54 subjects drawn from a convenience sample of writers, actors, directors, producers, studio executives, and others involved in the film industry. RESULTS: Hollywood is heterogeneous with varying perspectives on rates of tobacco use portrayal; intentionality of the decision to use and the necessity to portray tobacco use; and its degree of acceptance of responsibility for influencing societal smoking. Tobacco depiction may originate with the writer, actor, or director and is included most frequently to elucidate character or portray reality. On-camera smoking is influenced by actors' off-camera tobacco use. CONCLUSIONS: The research presented can help advocates better understand the norms and values of those working within the entertainment industry and thereby assist them in creating more effective change strategies.     

Public reaction to the portrayal of the tobacco industry in the film The Insider

OBJECTIVES: To assess public perceptions of the tobacco industry and behavioural intentions for tobacco use in response to watching the film The Insider. DESIGN: Self administered pre-film survey conducted immediately before viewing and post-film telephone survey conducted within 1-5 weeks of viewing. SETTING: Two commercial cinemas in Melbourne, Australia. SUBJECTS: 323 cinema patrons were recruited before screening of target films. 182 watched The Insider, 141 watched Erin Brockovich. INTERVENTIONS: Subjects watched one of two films: The Insider which featured information about unethical conduct by the tobacco industry and negative information about the health effects of smoking, or the "control" film Erin Brockovich which had an analogous plot without anti-tobacco content. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Pre-film questionnaire: assessed movie viewing habits, demographic characteristics, smoking status, attitudes towards the tobacco industry, intentions for smoking. Post-film questionnaire: assessed same attitudes and intentions plus questions on the film viewed and perceptions of smoking prevalence. RESULTS: 266 (82%) subjects completed the post-film survey. Attitudes toward the tobacco industry were unfavourable at baseline. Those who saw The Insider held more negative views of business conduct by the tobacco industry than those who saw Erin Brockovich, once pre-existing attitudes to the industry were controlled for. The Insider also appears to have promoted a short term reduction in intentions to smoke. CONCLUSIONS: Results of this study suggest that if people were recurrently exposed to anti-tobacco content in movies there is potential for a more substantial and lasting impact on attitudes toward the tobacco industry and smoking.     

Targeting youth and concerned smokers: evidence from Canadian tobacco industry documents

OBJECTIVE: To provide an understanding of the targeting strategies of cigarette marketing, and the functions and importance of the advertising images chosen. METHODS: Analysis of historical corporate documents produced by affiliates of British American Tobacco (BAT) and RJ Reynolds (RJR) in Canadian litigation challenging tobacco advertising regulation, the Tobacco Products Control Act (1987): Imperial Tobacco Limitee & RJR-Macdonald Inc c. Le Procurer General du Canada. RESULTS: Careful and extensive research has been employed in all stages of the process of conceiving, developing, refining, and deploying cigarette advertising. Two segments commanding much management attention are "starters" and "concerned smokers". To recruit starters, brand images communicate independence, freedom and (sometimes) peer acceptance. These advertising images portray smokers as attractive and autonomous, accepted and admired, athletic and at home in nature. For "lighter" brands reassuring health concerned smokers, lest they quit, advertisements provide imagery conveying a sense of well being, harmony with nature, and a consumer's self image as intelligent. CONCLUSIONS: The industry's steadfast assertions that its advertising influences only brand loyalty and switching in both its intent and effect is directly contradicted by their internal documents and proven false. So too is the justification of cigarette advertising as a medium creating better informed consumers, since visual imagery, not information, is the means of advertising influence.     

Litigation in Argentina: challenging the tobacco industry

Objective

To evaluate the processes and outcomes of tobacco litigation in Argentina and to analyse the strategies of the tobacco industry to oppose litigation using tobacco industry documents.

Methods

A systematic search of tobacco industry documents on the internet dating from 1978 to 2002. Law library searches using Argentinean official and unofficial reports systems were combined with computerised online searches.

Results

There have been at least 15 failed litigation cases in Argentina and the tobacco industry presented a concerted defence in every claim regardless of cost. We categorised 11 cases as product liability and nicotine addiction, two as health care reimbursement, and two as criminal law and secondhand smoke. Industry strategies included hiring legal consultants from prestigious international and Argentinean law firms and developing litigation prevention programmes. Industry monitored legal academic meetings, controlled the development of new product liability legislation, obtained favourable opinions from experts, and closely observed the development of litigation in Argentina.

Conclusion

The strategies used by the industry have been successful in preventing recovery for tobacco injuries through litigation. Argentinean health advocates and lawyers need to be aware of the roles and strategies of the tobacco industry in order to develop effective litigation in Argentina.     

Endotoxins in tobacco smoke: shifting tobacco industry positions.

In the 1980s, the tobacco industry started a campaign to divert attention away from secondhand tobacco smoke (SHS) as a major source of indoor air pollution in workplaces by highlighting the roles of other indoor air pollutants. The industry, working through "third parties," highlighted endotoxins, naturally occurring substances that cause numerous inflammatory reactions in humans, as an alternative explanation to SHS as causing indoor air problems. In 1995, Hasday and colleagues were the first to present findings that cigarette smoke contains significant quantities of endotoxins. This discovery surprised tobacco industry scientists. The 1999 publication of the full Hasday et al. findings received only limited media attention but got the full attention of Philip Morris scientists concerned about a new public health issue and a new basis for regulation of workplace smoking by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which already regulated workplace endotoxin exposures from other sources. Philip Morris undertook an internal endotoxin research project to test the Hasday et al. findings and to determine if endotoxin-free cigarettes were possible. Although experiments were conducted to remove endotoxin from the tobacco, there is no evidence that they were successful. Following confirmation of SHS as an important source of endotoxins, the scientist promoting endotoxins as an important indoor air pollutant for the tobacco industry softened his position on the role of endotoxins as indoor pollutants. The presence of endotoxins in SHS provides an additional mechanism for the adverse effects of SHS that should be researched further, and the risk of exposure should be assessed.