American Cigarette Makers Bombard Russian Smokers Aggressive Marketing Carves Niche Among Nation Of Smokers

At a disco party in a covered stadium, thousands of young people sway to booming music. Once in a while, somebody breaks from the neon-lit crowd to take free cigarettes from the smiling women who stroll the corridor outside.

Sponsored by Camel cigarettes, the party is one of the many promotions by Western tobacco companies that are aggressively marketing their products in one of the world’s most smoker-friendly nations.

With fewer people lighting up in the United States and tobacco firms on the defensive, cigarette manufacturers are expanding in Russia to compensate for lost sales at home.

They have received a warm welcome in Russia, where at least 50 percent of the people smoke, consumers are hungry for most things Western and tobacco taxes are low.

And unlike the United States and other countries that limit or ban cigarette advertising, there are few effective controls on marketing tobacco products in Russia.

In the hinterlands, where entertainment is scarce, Western tobacco companies offer young Russians free admission to parties if they buy a pack of cigarettes.

Billboards all over Russia feature pictures of skyscrapers and white sandy beaches and slogans like “Total Freedom” or “Rendezvous with America.” They aren’t advertising travel - but American cigarettes like Camel, Winston and Marlboro.

At shows and presentations, young women walk around the audience offering free smokes.

“It’s a very important market for us … because smoking has a long-standing tradition in Russia,” said Axel Gietz, spokesman for the main European office of R.J. Reynolds, the maker of Camel cigarettes.

No one under age 18 is admitted to Camel-sponsored discos, he said.

“Every time an underage person is caught smoking, we are blamed, and it is used as an (excuse) for even stricter laws on marketing,” Gietz said in a telephone interview from Geneva, Switzerland. “So it certainly does not help our business to encourage minors to smoke.”

Western-made cigarettes are far milder than Russian ones, which use harsh tobacco. As a result, foreign firms have done well in Russia, with the Americans leading the pack.

R.J. Reynolds, one of the biggest foreign players in the Russian market, has seen its sales double each year for the past three years, reaching $351 million in 1997, Gietz said.

Russia has relatively strict laws on the books to limit tobacco advertising - but no functioning legal or monitoring system to enforce them. Television tobacco ads were banned in 1995. But direct marketing and billboard advertising have increased to make up for the loss.

“In all civilized countries, they passed this stage a long time ago and have long since established” limits on tobacco advertising, said Tatyana Kamardina, senior researcher at the government’s Institute for Preventive Medicine in Moscow. “Tobacco companies have huge funds, and they spend them on converting people.”

Doctors and health-minded people may warn against smoking, but they are in the minority in Russia. Most Russians consider smoking a relatively innocent indulgence, especially compared to the binge drinking, poor diet and frequent accidents that give Russian men the lowest life expectancy in the industrialized world.

Russians buy more than 11 billion packs of cigarettes a year, of which 4 billion are imports, said Vladimir Aksyonov, spokesman for British American Tobacco in Moscow. “In Russia, the tendency is clearly in favor of American blends,” he said.

Russian companies aren’t happy about that and are stepping up their own advertising.

Russia’s leading tobacco company recently put up billboards adorned with the slogan “Strike Back” and a picture of its Yava cigarettes hovering like a spaceship over New York.

Russian brands also have a price advantage. At the equivalent of about 50 cents a pack, Russian cigarettes are much cheaper than Western brands, which run up to $2. In a country where the average monthly salary is about $200, Russian brands still sell well.

Not all Russians embrace smoking.

“The foreign companies have not been producing fewer cigarettes, yet smoking in the West has fallen,” said Vladimir Dmitriyev, a Muscovite. “So where are they selling all their cigarettes? Right here.”