The Tobacco Marketing Ethical Dilemma Essay

Outline

As one of the most common and preventable habits that cause ill health, premature death and health inequalities among the people in the world, tobacco marketing has presented a very serious challenge to the health professionals and society as a whole (WHO 2001, p. 23). The epidemiological evidence show that tobacco is a leading killer and that its revelation a deadly substance was in 1964. The increase in its consumption especially among the populations of the developing countries is being attributed to the persistent and vigorous marketing by the tobacco multinationals. They advertise tobacco to the less restricted markets of the developing markets that are torn between the need to sustain their economy and protect the lives of their population. There is therefore the present ethical dilemma facing the tobacco stakeholders and the public interest groups including the civil societies, thus the long battle between the two groups in relation to its ethical value to the society and economic benefits (Global Analysis Project Team 2000, p.89). The paper analyses the ethical dilemma considering the stakeholders’ views against the rest of the society, basing the analysis on the theoretical models and research facts about the tobacco concerns.

Introduction

In the sales and marketing industry, the way in which a product is marketed matters a lot since it can make the ultimate difference for the capacity of sale and consumption. Brazil as a nation initially had the highest level of expenditure per capita in the tobacco marketing compared to other countries in the world, but when the tobacco advertisement was burned for just a year, sales for cigarette dropped by about a record 5% within a period of nine months alone (Vateesatokit, Hughes & Ritthphakdee 2000, p.675). The developed countries have particularly received a good share of criticism on their tobacco marketing strategies that principally targets developing countries, considered to be vulnerable in their policies guiding tobacco marketing and consumption. United States for example, as the leading exporter of tobacco, has received criticism, especially from the American Cancer Society. The tobacco companies in the United States are accused of using “tar levels” well beyond the ones accepted in the United States, and mainly targeting women and children in the developing countries, thereby prompting the increase of tobacco use among these vulnerable groups (Saloojee& Dagli 2000, P.423). The paper analyses the tobacco marketing in the developing countries and the rising ethical issues and dilemmas, how to manage them, focusing on the tobacco multinational companies and their activities.

Literature Review

Tobacco smoking is one of the single most common and preventable habits that cause ill health, premature death and health inequalities among the people in the world (WHO 2001, p. 23). Again as one of the most commonly used addictive substance in the world, tobacco is one of the most important crops grown by the American farmers (WHO 2001, p.54). That is, it was the most valuable staple export from the English American mainland colonies and the United States with the latter dominating the manufacture and export of the tobacco products until 1960s (Yach & Bettcher 2000, p.765). The epidemiological evidence of the deadly tobacco effect in 1964 set the precedence for the mistrust between the tobacco production stakeholders and the public interest groups, that has led to long battle between the two groups in relation to its ethical value to the society despite its large contribution to the economy of the producer countries (Global Analysis Project Team 2000, p.89). Each country in the world has responded to the potential risks tobacco consumption by enacting laws governing tobacco use, with most state governments relying on the heavy taxations to discourage the tobacco use, while ignoring other aspect such as its marketing thus the 5.5 trillion cigarettes being smoked yearly all over the world (WHO 2001, p.56).

Major concerns for marketing the tobacco as potentially harmful products (PHPs) have increased in the recent years like never before, especially in the developing countries (Yach & Bettcher 2000, p.11). The controversy surrounding the issue has been inclined towards the: the exploitation potentials in the developing countries which seem more vulnerable, the tradeoff between protection of the vulnerable consumers and their rights to make informed decisions, and whether using the commercial speech doctrine to settle the issue of targeting the vulnerable developing countries markets (Joossens 2000, p.432).

The beginning of serious ethical dilemma regarding tobacco sales and marketing began in February 1989 when R.J. Reynolds introduced a new menthol cigarette known as Uptown into the Philadelphia test market, considered vulnerable due to its urban black composition (Kline 2005, P.146). It was this step that prompted protests from the civil society and other public interest groups, who bitterly complained about the RJR’s blatant and unjust exploitation of the already vulnerable group of consumers in Philadelphia. The protesters specifically believed that RJR Company and the likes should have never contributed to the further deterioration of the urban black community’s health standards as a result of illnesses from tobacco smoking habits (p.147). RJR Company bowed to pressure and halted their activities of production and marketing the uptown product, loosing millions of dollars invested in research and development (p. 149).

Many manufacturers have faced similar protests or obstacles in their attempt to produce and sell the tobacco products, especially to the group perceived to be vulnerable; minority groups in developed countries and the residents of the developing countries considered to be at risk due to weak public policy concerning tobacco marketing and consumption.

Some of the tobacco control policy elements issues in the developing countries according to many public health experts are inadequate in the control of tobacco consumption among the vulnerable groups. Hammond (1998, p. 69) states that policies may be addressing the supply and demand side of the tobacco equation, and that “supply-side controls include limiting tobacco sales and imports, as well as policies to support alternative crops or livelihoods.” The supply side of the control entail the putting limitation to the sales of tobacco, and supporting the alternative livelihoods, while demand side focuses on the taxation, total and partial bans on some forms of tobacco marketing like advertisements, restricted smoking zones, restricting sales to minors, health warnings, ingredients restrictions, and the provision of the accessible nicotine replacement therapies (Hammond 1998, p. 69; Joossens 2000, p. 912).

Tax for example is proven and effective way of reducing tobacco consumption as observed in South Africa, where the 47% of tax is imposed on the package price has significantly reduced the tobacco consumption in the country (Sautterand & Oretskin 1997, p. 712). However, raising taxes on tobacco in these countries has been criticized by the multinationals, defending their marketing strategies that they conform to the ethical needs of the society. In Mexico, the companies forced the government to reduce taxes on cigarettes toward the end of 1980s, setting up the record on tobacco consumption in the country (Townsend 1998, p.97). Banning tobacco advertisements targeting some of the groups in the society such as adolescents have been applied in several countries all over the world. China imposed the tobacco policy that banned both electronic and print media advertisement of tobacco, including the total ban on the advertisement targeting adolescents despite the fact that the implementation challenges exist due to the homogeneity of the population (Taylor & Bettcher 2000, p.79). South Africa is another developing country that banned direct advertisement, sponsorships for sports and other cultural events (p. 82). However, countries like Senegal still have cigarette companies sponsoring the sporting and cultural events, and the Mexico’s partial ban allowing the tobacco advertisement in the evening hours (Joossens 2000, p.88) showing how total ban on one of the county’s top income earners have been a difficult effort.

Environmental tobacco control policies are popular control measures for the global tobacco consumption, especially in the developing countries. However, in countries like Senegal, people still smoke in public places, Mexico still has few restrictions, focusing on the restrictions on the poorly ventilated areas only, while South Africa on the other hand has its policy restricts smoking on the government buildings, airports, as well as restaurants and parks (Joossens 2000, p.93).

While warning such as “smoking cigarette is harmful to your health” are commonly used by many tobacco multinationals operating in the developing countries may be effective, developed countries like Canada use the graphic images of the smoking side effects, that was introduced in the year 2001 to limit the tobacco consumption among its population (Yach & Bettcher 2000, p. 86; Taylor & Bettcher 2000, p.43). However, despite the level of success noted in some countries, thanks to the policies, there is still a big gap the policy development and implementations, the latter being the only quantifiable benefit that may accrue from the policies.

The ethical dilemmas

As the globalization increasingly breaks the borders, people and goods continue moving from place to place for free, hence creating new global challenges to health. As Pang & Guindon (2004, p.4) states, the challenges are enormous to an extent that they cannot be met by national governments solely, but instead should be dealt with by international organizations and agreements. The World Health Organization has estimated that 10 million people will die from the tobacco related effect in the next two decades, with approximately 70% of the deaths arise as a result of lung cancer, cardiovascular diseases, lung-related diseases, diabetes and many other cigarette- related complications in the developing nations (WHO 2001, p.14). It is noted that the developing countries are at risk, as industrialized nations continuously put stringent laws and regulations on the tobacco marketing and even put total ban on tobacco advertisements. The tobacco industries continuously target these countries to channel their marketing strategies for potential consumers of their products. This has been associated with the rise in tobacco consumption among children, adolescents and women in the developing countries (GYTSCG 2002, P.252).

The ethical dilemma surrounding the tobacco industry as a whole is still confusing to the academic fraternity. The two divided opinions mainly come from the two entrenched interests from the industry participants and the affected group (Kline 2005, p.467). The interests are surrounded by amount of money, historical belief systems that have been long –held, and the premature deaths associated with tobacco related illnesses (Pang & Guindon 2004, p.7). Globally, WHO approximated that there were1.1 billion smokers all over the world in the year 2000, and predicted that the figure would exceed 1.6 billion by the year 2025 (WHO 2001, p.7). The WHO also estimated that there was one out of ten total global deaths in the world and by the year 2030, it would be one out of six (p. 9). More worrying is the prediction that by the year 2020, 70% of the number of deaths related to tobacco will be in the developing countries (p. 12). Furthermore, the age of smoking trial has decreased in the developing countries, where between 82,000 and 99,000 young people start smoking everyday in the world, slightly over 80% being from the developing nations (GYTSCG 2002, P. 243). While it is noted that many developing nations traditionally have low tobacco consumption among the women, the recent trend has been on the rise since the end of 20^th century.

While it is obvious that the ethical views are mainly fronted by the public interest groups in the developing countries, the industry stakeholders are mainly arguing from the economic perspective, citing the benefits of the tobacco industry to the thousands of farmers who rely on the growing tobacco leaves for the industry and billions of dollars in tax revenue going to the federal governments yearly (Townsend 1998, p.453). The affected group and the sympathetic groups point their arguments towards the large death rates as a result of either passive or active tobacco use in the world (Sautterand & Oretskin 1997, p.764). The figure fronted by the World Health Organization (WHO) is even more worrying, predicting that the current 650 million smokers will die from the tobacco related diseases that is preventable (p. 765). This brings us to an important aspect in the tobacco related controversy or ethical dilemma, business Vs ethics. For example, the development of tobacco industry in China that came with vigorous marketing campaign strategies is viewed as against the health consequence that come with tobacco consumption, estimated to kill 600000 Chinese every year, predicted to reach 2 million by the year 2025 if there is no effective tobacco control strategy employed (Saloojee & Dagli 2000, p.141). The other dilemma is the employment Vs impoverishment in the developing countries, where work opportunities are given preference against the background of malnutrition that results partly from the household income spent on buying tobacco by the already struggling families in the developing countries given the addictive nature of the substance (Joossens 2000, p.76; Hammond 1998, p.177).

The tobacco industry critics responded with fiery when British America Tobacco (BAT), a market leader in the tobacco industry signed a deal with Nottingham University (UK) to contribute £3.8 million to establish an international centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at the University’s business school (Kline 2005, p.489). According to Chapman and Shatenstein, the University accepting money from the tobacco company is bad enough, especially the fact that they used it to fund research and development teaching and Corporate Social Responsibility, equating it to oil barons sponsorship chairs in peace studies, pornographers funding the study of erotic literature and unrepentant Nazi officer donating money towards the teaching of a critical history of holocaust (Kline 2005, p.491). “Academic institutions must adhere to certain core principles. Among the highest is the commitment to open a scientific enquiry. The tobacco industry is institutionally allergic to this central tenet, preferring to bury incriminating data and obfuscate emerging truths about the toxicity of its products” (Chapman & Shatenstein 2001, p.1). The Tobacco ethics dilemma was seen as a ‘grotesque oxymoron’ (p.2). The protest saw the resignation of prominent figures at the University, such as that of Richard Smith, the editor of the British Medical Journal, a cancer research team relocated from the University’s host City of Nottingham to London and saw a European parliamentarian giving up her role at the university (Chapman & Shatenstein 2001, p.4).

The worst scenario has been linked to the global policies that control the tobacco usage. In the globalization scenario, the economic liberation between different countries is being seen as the beginning of problems in the tobacco control process. The other aspect of globalization has been in the transnational sharing of the cultural believes, socio- political values prompted by the spiraling of the electronic communications and the media (Saloojee & Dagli 2000, p.146). The economic globalization has reduced the existing trade barriers that used to exist in between trading nations like the trade tariffs, subsidies, as well as restrictions on imports. This factor has led many advocates and research scholars to belief that such ease of trade agreements in the international markets are the source of cigarette flooding the developing countries, that consequently hinders a particular nation’s ability to control the cigarette use in these countries (Joossens 2000, p.78). The use of homogenizing cultural branding, the tobacco trade companies goes beyond the ethical thinking to ensure that their target to exploit a particular market shares is specific to that particular group (p. 83).

Ethical theories

The existing approaches to marketing ethics are numerous; since they may be based on either descriptive or normative approaches, i.e. the evaluation of decisions as either ethical or unethical would be well informed by particular sound theories of the normative marketing ethics while the social contracts theory allows for the framework to resolve issues arising as a result of marketing across borders.

Social Contract Theory

One of the most trusted and a regarded brand in the tobacco industry is the British American Tobacco Australia, launched in the year 1972. Their brand of Winfield is found in Australia, Pacific Island, New Zealand, Germany, France, Italy and United Kingdom. Its approach to expanding its myriad of brands is facing the challenges of ethical dilemma in the global marketing that entails promotion and advertisements (Sautterand & Oretskin 1997, p.79). For instance, in the Australia where the BATA products originate, the company tries to alienate itself from the notion that the firm is practicing some unethical promotional activities in their international market penetration (p.80). Just like many other major multinational, this is likely to tarnish the brands’ name and socially restrict their market share considering the increasing tightening of the tobacco legislations in Australia, America, and Europe. This idea raises the question of what level standardization should the cigarette advertising be implemented across the borders, especially for BATA’s Winfield brand.

In the developing nations, specific brands may find it easy to launch their products in particular markets due to relaxed or non- existent laws, for example;

• BATA may find it easy to market their Winfield brand in Senegal that has not restricted the advertisement boundary e.g. there are no restrictions consumers under 18 to get targeted in the markets. The question one would ask is, “should Winfield take advantage of this freedom by implementing campaigns that are attractive to the younger demographic group?”
• The process of product trials and sampling may be legal in some countries, mostly in the developing nations, so “should Winfield partake in these practices, being aware of the risks associated with smoking?”
• “Should health warnings be put on the pack in markets that do not legally require health warnings?”
• “Should Winfield launch promotional competitions that encourage more people to buy (and presumably smoke) more product so as to improve their chances of winning?” (Saloojee & Dagli 2000, p.144)

Many industry players have agreed to compromise on some of the laws to avoid the ever increasing stringent rules. For instance, the United States’ and Australia’s tobacco industries accepted the option of putting warning labels on their cigarette package “These are seen as the ethical practices and initiatives from the tobacco companies in an attempt to generate more positive PR for an industry that is shunned by many” (Taylor & Bettcher 2000, p.98). Many argue that the warning signs are intended to protect the tobacco companies as opposed to the intended consumers’ protection, particularly where the tobacco companies use warnings printed on their products to defend against the lawsuits they normally face, defending the industry that they have explicitly publicized the potential harm to smoking. The concept brings us to the consumer socialization theory, which states that “when too many restrictions are imposed on a free speech, there is the risk of negative effects on the process that is needed if developing the individual humans is to acquire the skills sufficient to be able to make informed and some rational decisions in the marketplace. Meaning that humans should just develop their own information filters based on their own trial and error as well as the information provided to them, not by the filters placed on the information by other people” (Taylor & Bettcher 2000, p. 92).

Action Research

There have been some efforts to establish a research base that looks at the attempts to reduce tobacco smoking. But can action researches change the smoking habits among the communities? The past few years have realized a dramatic surge in the number of smokers in the developing countries contrary to the steady decrease in numbers in the developed countries. Since smoking has been associated with some respiratory ailments like lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, etc.

One of the recent epidemiology studies was in China where the experts postulated that if the current tobacco consumption rate is not monitored; it is likely that a third of the Chinese male at the age bracket of 29 and below would be affected if the current trend is not monitored (Hammond 1998, p.32). Again smoking was found to cause high rate of mortality by the tuberculosis in the china (p. 33). Bidi smoking was found to have adverse effect on the normal body functionality, having a significant role in the fatal diseases’ development (Hammond 1998, p.34).

Other than smokers, research has established that non smokers who are exposed to smoke from cigarette in a passive manner, especially the pregnant mothers are likely to have foetal development (Global Analysis Project Team 2000, p.7). A typical example was in 2002 when the International Agency for research on Cancer revealed that involuntary smoking was carcinogenic to the people and that tobacco chewing has a very high risk of causing oral cancer (GYTSCG 2002, p.64).

Conclusion

The otherwise controversial tobacco industries have the opportunity to think ethically when it comes to designing and the implementation of the areas of the integrated marketing communication, having in the mind that the difference between the effective communication and the ethical practices are based on the market knowledge considered presently to be in limbo. Joossens( 2000, p.91) proposes the need for the balance between ethical activities, and on the other hand still benefit from the maximum exposure of the freedom of communication in some of these international markets in the developing countries.

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