Target Youth, Said Tobacco Firm’s Memo R.J. Reynolds Report Advised Seeking ‘Younger Adults’ As ‘Replacement Smokers’
R.J. Reynolds concluded in a secret 1984 report that it needed to pitch its cigarettes to young adults to “replace” other smokers, according to court papers filed Wednesday.
The marketing report, citing federal research that showed smokers begin as early as age 12 and rarely pick up the habit after 25, suggested that the company aggressively advertise toward younger people.
“Younger adult smokers are critical to RJR’s long-term performance and profitability. Therefore, RJR should make a substantial long-term commitment of manpower and money dedicated to younger adult smoker programs,” the report said.
“If younger adults turn away from smoking, the industry must decline, just as a population which does not give birth eventually will dwindle,” said the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.
The 77-page report was filed by the company as part of the discovery process in a Minnesota lawsuit, one of at least nine in which states are trying to recover Medicaid costs spent treating tobacco-related illnesses.
“It is an extremely damning document,” said Richard Daynard of the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University in Boston. “I think it’s probably no accident that it came out of RJR shortly before it embarked on its Joe Camel campaign, which was its first successful foray into the young adult - i.e., children’s - market.”
On a page titled “Younger Adults’ Importance as Replacement Smokers,” a chart used federal data to show that nearly 10 percent of male smokers had started smoking by age 12, with a median starting age of just under 17, and that no one started after age 25.
R.J. Reynolds spokeswoman Peggy Carter emphasized that the report defined “young adult smokers” as aged 18 to 24.
“Nowhere in this report does (report author Diane) Burrows suggest that the company market to anyone younger than 18,” Carter said.
She also said that since the report was written, RJR’s share of 18- to 24-year-old smokers has dropped from just more than 20 percent to less than 13 percent.
But Daynard said presuming that smokers begin at 18 is “absurd.” Figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say 82 percent of adult smokers already have smoked their first cigarette by age 18.
“It’s understood to be the very essence of success in the tobacco business: pitching cigarettes to kids,” Daynard said.
He also criticized R.J. Reynolds’ use of the phrase “replacement smokers.”
“Why do they have a replacement problem? Answer: Because they’re dying,” he said. “They’re quitting and they’re dying. Very importantly, it’s because of the product itself.”
The secret report was among truckloads of material tobacco companies turned over in response to a demand for any documents concerning nicotine addiction or the relationship between tobacco and children.
The report tracks a half-century of marketing for five key brands: Pall Mall, Winston, Marlboro, Kool and Newport.
The report praised Marlboro, for example, for using the Marlboro cowboy, “a mature, even older man,” to respond to the desires of younger adult smokers to express their maturity and independence through smoking.
But it criticized Pall Mall for initially failing to put filters in its cigarettes, saying, “Pall Mall became out of step with its times when the cancer scares of the mid-1950s created the filter boom.” By the time Pall Malls incorporated filters in 1965, the brand had “few younger adult smokers left to defend,” the report said.
It advised the company to capitalize on tested approaches, such as emphasizing the theme of “moving up in the world.” It also noted that Hispanics, blacks and females were gaining importance in the market and should be key targets.
Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III said the document is central to the state’s case, which accuses the tobacco industry of intentionally trying to maintain its markets by appealing to children and teenagers.
“The term ‘young adult marketing’ is nothing more than a candy-coated euphemism for ‘marketing to kids,”’ Humphrey said. “We have no intention of letting the tobacco industry’s Orwellian jargon keep us from discovering the truth.”
The Minnesota case has yielded other documents that tobacco critics call smoking guns. Filed in May, for example, was a secret industry report alleging that Philip Morris and Brown & Williamson boosted sales by deliberately enhancing their cigarettes’ nicotine levels.
xxxx SUIT FODDER More than half the states are at least studying the possibility of suing tobacco companies to recover smoking-related health-care costs.