Abstract

Key Findings: • In a full-page ad placed in newspapers throughout the United States, the 1954 “Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers” sought to dispute the smoking-cancer link and falsely position tobacco companies as concerned about public health. Since then, dozens of similar public relations campaigns by tobacco companies have sought to influence the public and policy makers. • Tobacco companies have long engaged in public relations campaigns to portray their corporation as changing, reformed in its ways, and now committed to being part of the solution. • Over the last few years, public relations campaigns by Philip Morris International (PMI) and Altria (parent company of Philip Morris USA) follow the same pattern – making the bold claims that they are public health advocates seeking to create a “smoke-free future” and “move beyond smoking” by “giving up cigarettes.” • Faced with steadily declining cigarette sales, PMI & Altria are promoting novel “smoke-free” nicotine delivery systems designed to sustain nicotine addiction among their customers and to recruit new users. At the same time, they continue to aggressively market cigarettes and oppose public health policies to reduce smoking. • Examination of the historical record shows that PMI & Altria’s campaigns are linear descendants of the decades-long tobacco industry effort to obfuscate the health consequences of tobacco use. • To remediate poor corporate reputations, PMI & Altria strive to burnish their tarnished image by implanting the notion that they are responsible corporate citizens worthy of being viewed as credible, trustworthy, and driven by the noble goal of enhancing the health of their customers. • PMI & Altria target their propaganda campaigns to influence key opinion leaders, including regulators and legislators, to adopt permissive policies favorable to their business interests. • PMI & Altria claim that they are “giving up cigarettes” while intensively promoting their combustible brands, including Marlboro, the #1 selling cigarette worldwide. • As part of their effort to remake their image as health companies, PMI is acquiring pharmaceutical companies which market treatments for respiratory and oral diseases while Altria is expanding into medical marijuana. • The health emphasis of PMI public relations communications contrasts markedly from its messages to investors, notably in their emphasis upon sustaining the profitability of their cigarette brands. • PMI & Altria’s “smoke-free” campaigns seek to undermine fact-based science by creating dubious counternarratives based upon biased and misleading claims. • PMI is untruthful in its marketing claims that its heated tobacco product (IQOS) is effective in smoking cessation and deceptive in its claims that it is “smoke-free.” • PMI created a supposedly independent “Foundation for a Smoke-Free World,” but it is the sole funder, and the company uses its charitable entity to further its “Smoke-Free Future” public relations campaign. • PMI’s “Smoke-Free Future” campaign falls squarely into the category of propaganda: a deliberate and systematic effort to persuade via psychological manipulation. Its “Unsmoke Your Mind” slogan is evocative of an Orwellian-style propaganda designed to implant false ideas in the viewer’s brain. • The pervasiveness of these campaigns across print, web, and social media seeks to “gaslight” its viewers, by copious repetition of untruths, into doubting well-established scientific truths. • Prestigious newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Boston Globe, which have long banned tobacco advertising, carry tobacco advertorials which are thinly veiled brand promotions and convey deceptive, factually inaccurate, messaging. • Appearing in leading newspapers lends tobacco advertorials credibility, conveys authority, implies endorsement, and bolsters believability to a company’s sponsored message. • In effect, PMI & Altria are using advertorials to circumvent advertising bans to promote their newly introduced products, especially their IQOS heated tobacco brand. • The traditional wall in journalism, which separates newspaper editorial and marketing departments, may have enabled acceptance of tobacco advertorials as a rich revenue source while keeping those who responsible for maintaining high journalistic standards at arm’s length. • Our hope is that editors, editorial boards, and publishers whose newspapers have long banned tobacco advertising will recognize the illogic and policy incongruity of carrying advertorials that have become a backdoor means of resuming tobacco promotion in their pages.