{"id":17608,"date":"2010-07-13T06:34:55","date_gmt":"2010-07-12T22:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/media-release\/alcohol-and-tobacco-sharing-strategies-to-increase-profits\/"},"modified":"2010-07-13T06:34:55","modified_gmt":"2010-07-12T22:34:55","slug":"alcohol-and-tobacco-sharing-strategies-to-increase-profits","status":"publish","type":"media-release","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/media-release\/alcohol-and-tobacco-sharing-strategies-to-increase-profits\/","title":{"rendered":"Alcohol and tobacco: sharing strategies to increase profits"},"content":{"rendered":"

C135\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

Continued Curtin research into the links between alcohol and tobacco companies has identified the top five strategies used by both industries to prevent regulation and maximise their marketing potential.<\/p>\n

The research was conducted by Curtin\u2019s Laura Bond, Professor Mike Daube and Associate Professor Tanya Chikritzhs.\u00a0 The findings were recently published in a paper entitled Selling addictions: Similarities in approaches between Big Tobacco and Big Booze in the Australasian Medical Journal.<\/p>\n

Curtin Professor of Health Policy, Mike Daube, said the research into once confidential tobacco industry documents has shown that for many years major tobacco and alcohol companies shared experience and ideas, and developed common strategies to counter perceived threats.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese companies also developed common responses to deflect concerns about tobacco and alcohol advertising, promotion, sponsorship, under-age consumption, and tax increases, and developed similar prevention and education campaigns,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The research used internal tobacco and alcohol industry documents from the tobacco document archive, focusing on the period to 2000, when the Philip Morris tobacco company owned one of the world\u2019s largest drinks companies, the Miller Brewing Company. The documents include confidential Briefing Books prepared for the Philip Morris Chief Executive Officer ahead of the company\u2019s Annual General Meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe documents show that these tobacco and alcohol companies not only worked closely together, but established a \u2018Worldwide Regulatory Affairs\u2019 group to promote \u2018cross-company synergies\u2019 in opposing restrictions in areas such as advertising,\u201d Professor Daube said.<\/p>\n

The top five strategies identified from the documents that are common to both tobacco and alcohol companies are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Arguing against tax increases \u2013 claiming that these are regressive, fall most heavily on lower-income earners, and penalise the majority who act responsibly.<\/li>\n
  2. Strategies for marketing to youth \u2013 including product placement, especially in movies, sweet, flavour-enhanced products, and promotional campaigns.<\/li>\n
  3. Targeting minority groups \u2013 through the strategic placement of signage, corporate donations to special interest groups, and community involvement.<\/li>\n
  4. Arguing that health warning labels are ineffective \u2013 claiming there is a lack of evidence that warning labels are effective, that they infringe upon trademarks, and that they divert attention away from more effective programs.<\/li>\n
  5. Running their own public awareness and education programs \u2013 to shape public opinion, influence government and seemingly demonstrate responsible corporate citizenship. They are developed to change attitudes rather than actual behaviour.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Professor Daube said learning about alcohol and tobacco industry strategies is enormously helpful in developing health policy.
    \n\u201cWe now know which measures the industries most fear and those they think will have least impact on their sales,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt is also important to have confirmation that these companies and industries have worked closely together, despite attempts by the drinks industry to distance itself from tobacco.<\/p>\n

    \u201cRelationships beyond the companies reviewed are confirmed by statements in the documents such as \u2018We participate in a broad coalition of organizations committed to defending commercial free speech, which includes member companies of the tobacco industry, allied industries like the liquor industry, the advertising industry, industry trade groups\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

    \u201cThese industries spend billions worldwide promoting their products and have developed sophisticated lobbying mechanisms to oppose action that might work and to promote ineffective alternatives.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe Corporate Affairs Vice-President of Philip Morris even noted in a presentation to the company\u2019s Board that they had \u2018scores and scores of trained professionals throughout the world adept at lobbying and carrying our messages to key decision-makers\u2019,\u201d Professor Daube said.<\/p>\n

    Curtin Research Associate, Laura Bond said tobacco and alcohol companies both run ineffective public awareness and educational programs and seek to work alongside health and safety groups to present a responsible public image.<\/p>\n

    \u201cBoth industries claim they \u2018do not want minors to smoke or drink\u2019 yet the documents show that they share business models to deal with \u2018marketing youth issues\u2019. They also continued to develop marketing activities to attract a youth market,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

    This research paper follows an earlier paper, also in the Australasian Medical Journal, identifying some of the alcohol industry\u2019s major concerns.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWhile there has been access for some years to the tobacco industry\u2019s confidential documents, the information that we have been able to obtain from alcohol industry documents paints a depressingly similar picture,\u201d Professor Daube said.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThis is all too well confirmed by the approach taken by the drinks industry in Australia, which even now spends upwards of $500 million each year promoting its products and opposing all serious constraints.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Contacts:<\/strong> Mike Daube; Professor of Health Policy; Curtin; 0409 933 933; m.daube@curtin.edu.au OR Laura Bond; Research Associate; Curtin; 08 9266 7117; l.bond@curtin.edu.au<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Continued Curtin research into the links between alcohol and tobacco companies has identified the top five strategies used by both industries to prevent regulation and maximise their marketing potential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-17608","media-release","type-media-release","status-publish","hentry","category-research"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":false,"author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Â鶹ֱ²¥"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/17608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/media-release"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/17608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17608"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=17608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}