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The R.J.
Reynolds Tobacco Co. plans soon to introduce a brand of cigarette – Dakota
– that, according to the detailed marketing report prepared for the
company, targets young, poorly educated, white women whom the company calls
‘virile females.’ |
"New Ad Target:
'Virile Female.'" The Washington Post, February 17, 1990
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| "It is important to know as
much as possible about teenage smoking patterns and attitudes. Today's teenager
is tomorrow's potential regular customer, and the overwhelming majority of
smokers first begin to smoke while in their teens . . . it is during the
teenage years that the initial brand choice is made."
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Carol Levy, now Philip
Morris’ senior vice president of youth smoking prevention, in the report,
"Young Smokers: Prevalence, Trends, Implications, and Related Demographic
Trends," March 31, 1981
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Throughout most
of the 20th century, the tobacco industry publicly argued that nicotine was not
addictive, that the link between cancer and smoking was not proven, and that
the industry had not sought to recruit young people to smoking. However, since
the release of thousands of previously secret internal tobacco industry
documents as a result of the Master Tobacco Settlement,
consumers have become aware that the industry has known for many years that
nicotine is addictive, that there are strong links between smoking and cancer
and that the recruitment of young smokers is critical to the industry’s
future viability. Additionally, these documents provide important information
about the ways in which tobacco industry marketing has targeted youth, girls
and women and minorities over the years.
The National
Cancer Institute spent $47 million in 1991 to develop and disseminate effective
smoking intervention technologies. The same year, the major cigarette
manufacturers spent $4.6 billion ($4,600 million) in an effort to convince
people that smoking is necessary for social acceptance, that it makes one
attractive to the opposite sex, and that it enhances self-image. For every $1
that the NCI spends on research to combat smoking, the tobacco industry spends
$98 to promote the addiction.
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86 percent of teen smokers
(ages 12-17) prefer Marlboro, Camel and Newport - (which happen to be the three
most heavily advertised brands). Marlboro, in first place, takes 55% of the
teen market and 35% of smokers over 25. |
Source: "Summary findings
from the 1999 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse," Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Services Administration , U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services
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| "Today's teenager is tomorrow's
potential regular customer. . . The smoking patterns of teenagers are
particularly important to Philip Morris. . ." |
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Philip Morris report sent
from researcher Myron E. Johnston to Robert B. Seligman, then vice president of
research and development, 1981
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Massachusetts Department of Health
found that cigarette advertising increased by 33 percent in magazines with high
youth readership after the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, in which
the tobacco companies agreed to not market to teens. |
Bowker, Dianne Turner and
M. Hamilton, "Cigarette Advertising Expenditures before and After the
Master Settlement Agreement: Preliminary Finding." May 15, 2000
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