Archive for July 2009
Plain packaging
Great work by Dr. Hammond and his UW team.
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5i9i5GR8JwyTNWxViLWUeWLlGAShg
Snazzy cigarette packaging has consumers thinking the product is less lethal
By Diana Mehta (CP) – July 27, 2009
TORONTO — When it comes to choosing which cigarette to smoke it seems the prettier the package, the less lethal the product appears to those buying it.
A study published in the Journal of Public Health found cigarette packages in lighter colours, bearing words like “smooth” and “filter,” have consumers convinced the product has fewer health risks.
“We probably shouldn’t have packaging that confuses people about whether some brands are less harmful than others. That’s essentially a lethal misperception,” said the study’s lead author David Hammond, a professor of health studies at the University of Waterloo.
The study – one in a series of papers on cigarette packaging – had more than 600 adults, smokers and non-smokers, rate a variety of fictitious cigarette packages.
Participants were asked to compare packages in pairs and say which they believed would taste smoother, deliver more tar and carry lower health risks.
Eighty per cent of those surveyed said they believed the package labelled “smooth” would be less hazardous than the one labelled “regular.”
A lighter blue box was also thought to carry a lower health risk than a darker one, while about 75 per cent of respondents found a box with the picture of a charcoal filter likely to be less risky than one without the illustration.
While the study surveyed people only in Ontario, Hammond said the results likely reflected similar situations the world over as the tobacco industry uses similar packaging practices in other countries.
“Cigarette packaging is associated with false beliefs about the risks of cigarettes and obviously that’s a problem,” said Hammond.
With no billboard advertising and words like “light,” “mild”and “low-tar” outlawed from use, the calculated design of a cigarette package is incredibly important to tobacco companies, said Hammond.
“The pack is now the most important marketing tool in Canada,” he said.
The researchers are calling for an expansion of the list of words banned from cigarette packaging and they are also pushing for the implementation of plain standardized packaging for all brands.
Plain packaging involves removing any brand imagery from a box so all packs look identical save for the brand name which would appear in a mandated size, font and position. The WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control already states that countries should consider plain packaging.
Health Canada, however, is not considering the concept at the moment, said spokeswoman Christelle Legault.
Larger health messages and more health information could have a greater impact than plain packaging, said Legault.
New ideas in tobacco control may be brought up as Canada’s Federal Tobacco Strategy is renewed by 2011, she said.
As public health officials deliberate, tobacco industries say their phrasing is only to describe a cigarette’s taste. But this is debatable, Hammond said.
“Consumers are using it as indicators of risk,” he said. “That helps reduce their guilt and (they) continue smoking.”
While cigarette brands compete against one another with references to filters or statistics, Hammond said no brand trumps another with lower health risks.
Roberta Ferrence, executive director of the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit, said the study highlighted how existing regulations on packaging were not having the impact they were supposed to as people still consider some cigarettes less risky than others.
“It’s misleading advertising, there are no healthier cigarettes,” she said, adding that certain phrasing and colouring on a package could encourage people to take up smoking.
Variations in cigarette packaging also target different kinds of smokers, said Veda Peters, tobacco education co-ordinator with the Canadian Lung Association.
“People want to believe that there’s a safe way to use the product and they want to buy into these descriptors.”
Plain packaging would allow cigarettes to be stripped of the wordy advertising that surrounds them, she said.
“If you have generic packaging you see cigarettes for what they are – they’re unimportant, they’re dirty, they’re smelly, they do nothing for you.”
Ultimately, playing with colours and catchy phrasing on cigarette packages lies at the core of tobacco industry marketing, said Rob Cunningham, a senior policy analyst for the Canadian Cancer Society.
“It’s a mini billboard that walks around school yards, communities and inside homes,” he said. “We need to have plain packaging.”
The U.K.-based journal in which the study appeared is published by a division of Oxford University Press.
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http://jpubhealth.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/fdp066
Journal of Public Health Advance Access published online on July 27, 2009
Journal of Public Health, doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdp066
Abstract
The impact of cigarette package design on perceptions of risk
David Hammond, Assistant Professor
Carla Parkinson, Research Assistant
Department of Health Studies and Gerontology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L 3G1
Background More than 40 countries have laws prohibiting misleading information from tobacco packages, including the words ‘light’, ‘mild’ and ‘low-tar’. Little is known about the extent to which other words and package designs prove misleading to consumers.
Methods A mall-intercept study was conducted with adult smokers (n = 312) and non-smokers (n = 291) in Ontario, Canada. Participants viewed pairs of cigarette packages that differed along a single attribute and completed ratings of perceived taste, tar delivery and health risk.
Results Respondents were significantly more likely to rate packages with the terms ‘light’, ‘mild’, ‘smooth’ and ‘silver’ as having a smoother taste, delivering less tar and lower health risk compared with ‘regular’ and ‘full flavor’ brands. Respondents also rated packages with lighter colors and a picture of a filter as significantly more likely to taste smooth, deliver less tar and lower risk. Smokers were significantly more likely than non-smokers to perceive brands as having a lower health risk, while smokers of light and mild cigarettes were significantly more likely than other smokers to perceive brands as smoother and reducing risk. Perceptions of taste were significantly associated with perceptions of tar level and risk.
Conclusion The findings suggest that current regulations have failed to remove misleading information from tobacco packaging.
Keywords: beliefs, smoking
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http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/05/27/f-marketplace-cigarette-package.html
Marketplace
Consumer tales
Judging a cigarette by its package
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 | 9:27 PM ET
By Erica Johnson, cbc news
Canada’s cigarette companies are a bit like the Energizer Bunny — they keep going and going, against all odds.
First, their tobacco ads were pulled from TV screens across the country. No more promoting that fun and sexy lifestyle in your living room.
Then cigarette companies were told they could only advertise in publications with an adult readership of at least 85 per cent.
Next, cigarette companies were banned from sponsoring events. Then, cigarette packages were — literally — forced under cover in stores across the country.
This week, the federal government announced a bill aimed at protecting young people from taking up the habit. The bill, if made into law, will ban tobacco advertisements in all publications, regardless of readership age. And will forbid sugar and fruit flavours from being added to small cigars, called cigarillos.
‘Like a little BlackBerry’
So what to do, if you’re a tobacco giant trying to boost sales?
Well, all that’s left is the package that cigarettes come in — the final frontier for marketers who are tasked with keeping people smoking and encouraging a new crowd.
Check out the latest “Superslims” by Benson & Hedges. Sleek packages that might pass for iPods, containing slender smokes reminiscent of the ’40s. When I showed them on the streets of Vancouver, passersby called them “sleek,” “chic,” “cute” and “feminine.” Women definitely preferred them to other brands I hauled out.
Not to be outdone, Player’s cigarettes now open sideways — resulting in comments like “Cool!” and “Like a little BlackBerry!”
And then there’s du Maurier’s overhaul — the box is no longer boxy, it’s octagonal.
“It’s a way of making the pack talk louder,” says David Hammond, a health researcher at the University of Waterloo. “When you don’t have TV ads, you don’t have billboards, when you don’t have that traditional marketing, this is a way of the pack standing out and doing more than it used to do.”
A call for plain packages
Hammond says cigarette makers are also using colour to convey messages.
Gone are the days when companies could claim their smokes were “light” or “mild,” so now they’ve produced packages in stark white.
“It’s against the law for manufacturers to promote cigarettes in any way that suggests one brand is less harmful than another,” says Hammond. “And colour is an excellent way to do that.”
What’s needed, says Hammond, is plain packaging, pure and simple. That means no colours, no logos, no special shapes.
“Plain packaging does three things,” he says. “It makes it less appealing to kids, reduces false beliefs about health risks, and it makes health information on the pack more important.
“At the end of the day, it reflects the idea that maybe we shouldn’t be marketing a lethal consumer product to kids in pink packaging and the rest of it.”
We contacted Canada’s big three tobacco companies — Imperial Tobacco, JTI Macdonald, and Rothman, Benson & Hedges. All three told us that they’re opposed to plain packaging, because it takes away a consumer’s choice.
The industry has also argued that moving to plain packaging wouldn’t affect sales, a claim that makes Hammond scoff. “I don’t know how they can spend millions on packaging, and then say taking away those things will have no impact.”
