Thanks to all of you who forwarded us responses to November's Question re: how the tobacco industry markets "light" and "mild" cigarettes in your respective countries.

Perhaps most interesting is the tobacco industry's use of various colors to denote "Light." Blue and white seem to the colors of choice for "light" cigarette packs around the world. And associated advertisements often rely on blue, silver, green, and beige tones (as opposed to red and orange). This suggests that a simple ban on the terms "Light" and "Mild" is unlikely to be effective in overcoming the deception; rather, a comprehensive tobacco advertising ban is the way to go!

Ah, but if the deception only ended there! In November, British American Tobacco's Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. introduced a "lower toxin" brand, Advance, the same day that Vector Tobacco launched Omni, purported to have "fewer carcinogens." Meanwhile Philip Morris markets Accord and R.J.Reynolds, Eclipse. While the brand names and advertising give the impression that the cigarettes are less harmful, there is no evidence that they are. It's just more of the same from an industry bent on protecting profits, not human life.

For a summary of responses to November's question and some additional related information, please see below.

"LIGHT" & BLUE ... AND STILL DEADLY!

General comments

• PAPUA NEW GUINEA: BAT has a monopoly in PNG, and the main cigarette brands (excluding the long coarse cut cigarettes popular among poorer and rural smokers) are Benson & Hedges, Kools, Cambridge and Winfield. Only Winfield and Benson & Hedges have obvious "light" cigarette versions.

What names and/or descriptors are used? e.g. "Light," "Mild," "Low tar"

• ARGENTINA: light, mild, low tar, soft, long, short, blond, black.
• BANGLADESH: "light"
• UGANDA: "light", "special filter", "king size", "regular", "medium". The terms are used mainly on the BAT brands.
• CAMEROON: "agréable au goût" [pleasant tasting]
• CONGO, DEM REP OF: "legère" [light], for example BAT-CONGO produces a brand called "Tumbaco legère"

Does the cigarette pack and related advertisements use a particular color scheme?

• ARGENTINA: The cigarettes packs have for each mark a different color and design.
• BANGLADESH: Red - Gold leaf regular; Blue - Gold leaf light; Golden - B & H
• CAMEROON: Yes
• CONGO, DEM REP OF: Yes, very often the cigarette packs and the advertisements use particular colors. For example BAT CONGO manufactures a cigarette brand called "AMBASSADE LIGHTS," always in a blue pack. The color blue is also dominant in billboard advertising for "ABASSADE LIGHTS," in order to distinguish it from "AMBASSADE FILTRE," which is always red.
• PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Winfield Filter is in glaring red and white, Winfield Extra Mild is in hot blue and white. Benson & Hedges Lights: Same gold pack, but the "Special Filter" (usual type) has a red label around the words "Special Filter" on the top, and the other has a blue label around the word "Light" on the top.
• SENEGAL: Marlboro "Regular" advertisements rely on Western scenes rich in reds and orange tones, e.g. red stone, sunsets, red Marlboro jeeps. In contrast, green and beige tones dominate the horse and cowboy scenes for Marlboro Lights. To view the difference see
  http://www.globalink.org/gt/af-docs/9909/c7-7.jpg &
  http://www.globalink.org/gt/af-docs/9909/c2-11.jpg

Do cigarette packs bear a numerical labeling system that supposedly correlates with tar/nicotine levels? e.g. 1=mild, 10=regular (Note: this is a strategy that the tobacco industry is testing in some parts of Asia)

• BANGLADESH: No
• CAMEROON: No
• CONGO, DEM REP OF: Yes, most packs have a labelling system [tar levels]
• PAPUA NEW GUINEA: On all the regular cigarettes (Benson & Hedges Special Filter, Cambridge Filter Tip, Kool Menthol Filter Kings King Size, and Winfield Filter), the numerical labelling system and wording is identical: "15mg CPM or less, 1.5 mg nicotine or less as per Government agreed method". The "light" cigarette is Winfield Extra Mild. It's numerical labelling system reads: "10mg CPM or less, 1.0mg nicotine or less per Government agreed method". In other words it claims 2/3 the levels of the regular cigarettes.

Does advertising associated with the brand make any reference to the cigarette's taste or flavor?

• ARGENTINA: Yes, e.g. the package of the cigarettes with mint flavor is green
• BANGLADESH: No
• CAMEROON: Yes

Are there any other marketing strategies that the tobacco industry uses to differentiate "light" brands from "regular" brands?

• BANGLADESH: New Lights with white Tipping, Now availabile in Bangladesh
• CAMEROON: Yes, to capture the attention of those who think that tar is bad for one's health

To whom are the "light" brands targeted?

• ARGENTINA: The "light" brands are targeted especially for people who "are worried about health"
• CAMEROON: Young people
• PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Advertising generally is prohibited, other than sports and cultural sponsorships. So it is hard to see if the "light" type brands target a particular group.

Thanks to the following GPTC participants for their responses:

• ARGENTINA - Betiana Alvarez, Asociación Argentina de Prevención y Educación del Cáncer
• BANGLADESH - Tahin, Work for a Better Bangladesh
• CAMEROON - Alphonse Issi, Mouvement National des Consommateurs
• CONGO - Itamponi Micheline Antum, Bons Temeliers
• PAPUA NEW GUINEA - Colin Richardson, Adventist Health Department

More from around the world:

"Linking descriptors to colors"
(From Globalink 11/27/01)

This year, Brazil has published a law prohibiting the use of descriptors like "light", "ultralight", "mild" and similars on brazilian cigarette brands. This law will come into force from next January on.

In order to prepare their consumer to new ways of comunication related to the ideia of "less harmful brands", tobacco companies has been investing in new strategies such as diferent colors of packagings in the same family of brands.

The last one is in the Hollywood family,a very consumed brand in Brazil, from a Souza Cruz company (brazilian company from BAT group). They have just launched two more different collors of Hollywood brand. So besides the red color related to the regular yields, there are the blue package and the green menthol one.

The new strategy is that blue package comes with a tip of paper device indicating the consumer to pull it. Doing so, the consumer gets a message presenting the new version of the light brand as follows:

" BLUE The pleasure and the mildness in a new and modern package. This is Hollywood Blue, a light version of Hollywood."

Tania Cavalcante
Tobacco Control Program Manager
National Cancer Institute
Health Ministry of Brazil

"Epidemiological and other scientific evidence, including patterns of mortality from smoking-caused diseases, does not indicate a benefit to public health from changes in cigarette design and manufacturing over the last fifty years" (p. 10). The report further concludes that the marketing of these products as delivering less tar and reducing risk is "deceptive" and smokers' choice of these products as an alternative to quitting makes this deception an "urgent public health issue" (p. 1).

The study's key findings are as follows:

• While changes in cigarette design have reduced the amount of tar and nicotine measured by smoking machines, studies now show that these machine measurements do not accurately show how much tar and nicotine is actually received by the smoker. There is no meaningful difference in exposure from smoking low-tar and regular brands, and therefore no difference in disease risk. That is because smokers smoke low-tar brands differently to obtain the same amount of nicotine. Smokers block ventilation holes; inhale more deeply; take larger, more rapid, or more frequent puffs; or increase the number of cigarettes smoked per day.

• Internal tobacco industry documents show the industry deliberately designed cigarettes that would produce low yields of tar when tested by machines, but would be smoked differently by actual smokers seeking to maintain nicotine levels. Despite knowing that low-tar cigarettes delivered the same amount of tar to smokers, the cigarette companies marketed them as reduced risk by using terms such as "light", "ultra-light" and "mild". Many smokers smoked or switched to these brands in a false belief they were reducing their disease risk. The report finds that the cigarette companies especially marketed the "illusion of risk reduction" to smokers who were thinking of quitting, with the effect of discouraging them from taking action that truly would have improved their health.

• As a result, people who smoke low-tar cigarettes are exposed to the same amount of dangerous toxins and have not reduced their risk of developing lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease and other smoking-caused diseases. The study finds that there is no convincing evidence that changes in cigarette design, including the introduction of low-tar cigarettes, have reduced disease either for smokers as a group or for the whole population.

Vector Group ads admit cigarette cancer danger - Advertising Age
http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=33354

B&W Test Markets New Cigarette - Washington Post/AP
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011105/aponline194356_000.htm