Running out of options, tobacco companies employ dark marketing

Tobacco companies skirt ad bans with sneaky marketing tactics.

“If you buy a pack of Camels, you’ll gain access to the lounge bar where the view is better and get to take pictures with our models,” said a scantily-clad young lady standing behind a cigarette stand at the entrance to an all-night dance party on March 12.

The DJ party was an Urban Wave event, Camel Cigarette’s promotion company, which is licensed to Japan Tobacco International. And it took place in Kyiv’s 25,000 square-meter International Exhibition Center that easily fits 6,000 music revelers.

The ticket had radio station Kiss FM and MTV Ukraine listed as partners.
But what the majority of that evening’s 20-somethings didn’t know was that Urban Wave is JTI’s pseudo-brand.

Using social media like Facebook and involving international artists and DJs, Camel organizes musical events to draw public interest towards its brand indirectly in order to engage with existing or future smokers.

“The sole purpose of Urban Wave is to distribute cigarettes to their demographic inside the venue of these parties,” said Andriy Skipalsky, chairman of LIFE, a coalition of anti-tobacco non-profit organizations.

Skipalsky said this concept of “dark marketing,” although legal, is how tobacco companies increasingly engage with target market groups, namely youth.

“Its covert because it’s below the radar and once consumers are engaged with a pseudo-brand, the true brand – Camel – can engage with them,” he said. “It appears like any other form of human communication but it’s somewhat subversive because it intends to promote the cigarette brand’s interests.”

The activist said these events then capitalize on package imagery and design elements in order to build empathy with the target group.

“If you buy a package of cigarettes you are lured by questionable benefits -- painting a life-size model of a Camel, or accessing a bar lounge -- thus gettting to interact with the brand”, said Skipalsky.

Tobacco companies have a history of targeting youth in their marketing practices in order to replace older smokers who either quit or die from smoking-related diseases.

In Ukraine, 100,000 people die annually due to smoking while 29 percent of adults currently smoke tobacco, according to the 2010 Global Adult Tobacco Survey.
A 1975 RJ Reynolds internal company document cited the importance of getting young people hooked on cigarettes.