The Pull of Cigarette Packaging

It's all about the packaging. Even though people say they aren't influenced by how someone or something looks, we all realize that, secretly, packaging counts.

After all, packaging is what draws the sexes into their ages-old dance.

It's how people view everything from cars and houses to clothes, pets and food. So packaging, whether or not we want to admit it, is very important in peoples' decisions on what to purchase or pursue.

The same applies to cigarette packages. And the tobacco companies are masters at packaging.

Appearances Are Everything

Packaging, for tobacco products particularly, is a primary marketing tool of tobacco companies. They constantly monitor and regularly alter packaging to ensure their products' continuous and increasing appeal to target audiences.

Note that packaging and marketing are separate concepts, although packaging is a component of marketing.

Packaging deals with the actual container holding the product. Marketing incorporates packaging as one of several components involved in branding the product, attracting, selling to and maintaining customers.

But why is the appearance of a tobacco product container so important?

First of all, tobacco packaging is highly visible. Think about how many times cigarette packages are taken from pockets and purses and placed on tables, desks, counters and vehicle dashboards every day. Then add the displays of tobacco products in retail stores, convenience stores and outdoor areas worldwide.

Secondly, packaging is the critical link between the product and all forms of promotion. Packaging becomes even more important as other promotional avenues are restricted or eliminated by law.

Think about the so-called "power walls" - those large, eye-catching, often floor to ceiling displays of tobacco products behind the checkout area in retail outlets. They promote tobacco products at the critical moment when the consumer is prepared to buy.

Thirdly, packaging conveys product characteristics, even when the product itself does not.

Tobacco product packaging strongly influences consumers' perceptions of the product. Studies have repeatedly shown that smokers often cannot tell the difference between different brands of cigarettes when they have no distinguishing packaging marks on them. So packaging becomes everything.

In fact, even the tobacco companies admit that without packaging, tobacco users cannot differentiate among brands.

"The discrimination in product terms, pure blind product terms, without any packaging or name around it is very limited...it's very difficult for people to discriminate, blind tested. Put it in a package and put a name on it, and then it has a lot of product characteristics," said Don Brown in 1989, then vice president of marketing for Imperial Tobacco of Canada.

Fourthly, packaging and branding is particularly important to young people, who comprise the primary source of new customers for tobacco companies.

Tobacco products, and particularly cigarettes, are "badge" products, or products with a high degree of social visibility, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and other anti-tobacco groups.

"The users perceive their own personality in the brand image, and the brand image reflects back on them," according to a statement from WHO.

Fad or Fashion?

Tobacco companies and the ancillary industries surrounding the tobacco industry are on the cutting edge of consumer fads and wishes. That's how they continually pull in new customers.

That means packaging for these new customers is everything.

For instance, in a May 9, 2009 story in London's Financial Times, Eileen Khoo, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, stated: "Given the current environment, if you want smokers to continue smoking premium brands, you have to give them a reason to stay loyal to the brand. And one of the best ways of doing that is through slicker packaging and new product features such as resealable packs, super-slims and charcoal filters."

A page on the website of International Paper's Shorewood Packaging states: "We work closely with global tobacco companies to deliver dazzling packaging that conveys strong brand recognition."

Packager MeadWestVaco (MWV) opens a portion of its website with a color photo of a tobacco field, with the words "Packaging Solutions that Build Tobacco Brands" emblazoned across the photo.

On various pages the website goes on to say such things as:

"In today's environment, where traditional tobacco advertising remains restricted, the cigarette package presents a meaningful opportunity to make an impression on your customer."

Another page on MWV's site is entitled: Packaging Innovation Fueled by Consumer Intelligence - "On the campus of North Carolina State University, MWV operates the Center for Packaging Innovation, (CPI) a centralized hub focused on understanding consumer behavior and the impact that behavior may have on the design, development and deployment of breakthrough packaging products.

"The research obtained from CPI provides MWV, and ultimately its customers, a unique perspective when considering new products or evaluating trends ... This, in turn, helps MWV better serve the tobacco industry by acting as an informed partner in the goal to grow your market share."

Making Lemonade

On the flip side of the coin, tobacco packaging could be an equally important way for governments to mass distribute their public health messages.

If health warnings on packaging were thought of as a mass media campaign, the warnings would be virtually guaranteed to be seen by almost all smokers and a significant number of non-smokers.

Using tobacco packages to communicate health information is also an extremely cost effective way for governments to distribute their message. Almost all of the costs, other than the costs associated with the implementation of any government policy, would be borne by the tobacco companies because packaging is their responsibility.

To get an idea of how effective this could be as a public health warning, a pack-a-day cigarette smoker, according to WHO, sees the cigarette package, including an effective health warning, at least 7,300 times a year.

That is why WHO considers tobacco health warnings that appear on cigarette packages among the strongest defense against what WHO calls the global epidemic of tobacco.

In particular, WHO likes tobacco health warnings that contain both pictures and words because, says WHO, they are the most effective at convincing people to quit using tobacco products.

Using World No Tobacco Day 2009 (May 31) as a starting point, WHO will spend 12 months encouraging governments to adopt  universal tobacco health warnings set to achieve maximum effectiveness. That would include a warning that covers over half the cigarette package, appears on both sides of the package, and contains pictures.

According to WHO statistics, pictorial warnings are used in more than 12 countries, including Canada, Australia and Brazil. And those pictures wrapped around cigarette packages - particularly in Brazil - can be gross. That's the point.

However, for all these warnings, visual clout, such as pictures, is not uniform and can, like written warnings, be hidden in an inconspicuous spot on the package.

WHO Did It

After three years of work, WHO crafted a document called the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Treaty, the first ever world-wide document of its kind.

One hundred ninety countries worked to finalize the treaty, as a united effort to combat the world pandemic of tobacco-related health problems.

The treaty took effect in 2005, ratified by 49 nations (including Canada, Mexico, Australia and the United Kingdom). An additional 120 countries signed the treaty, but have not yet ratified it, which means those governments are not legally bound to obey the treaty conditions.

The United States, under President George W. Bush, became the 108^th nation to sign it in May 2004. However, the bill was not sent before the U.S. Senate to be ratified and then signed into U.S. law.

The treaty exempts tobacco control from free trade challenges, limits tobacco advertising, cracks down on tobacco smuggling, bans tobacco sales to and by minors, promotes agricultural diversification and alternative livelihoods for tobacco farmers, standardizes packaging (banning such terms as "light" and "mild") and improves warning labels.

The tobacco companies are fighting to stop, or at least restrict warnings, especially the types that WHO is calling for during the 2009 World No Tobacco Day campaign.

Their argument is that requiring such extensive use of packages (half of every pack, both sides and not the edge, pictures as well as words) for health warnings that include graphic pictures, is an infringement of their free speech.

The argument, in simple terms, is that plain packaging requirements for cigarettes or large health warnings on packages would "encumber" tobacco companies' trademarks and "undermine the very purpose of trademarks, to provide easily determinable distinguishing marks for one company's product over another."

So far, the argument has not held up in European courts. Since the U.S. only signed, but has never ratified the WHO Framework Treaty, it does not adhere to these rules. No case has yet come to the U.S. courts regarding large health warnings and graphic pictures on cigarette packages.

If It Isn't Broke...

As long as tobacco manufacturers are allowed to package without restriction, or without large and eye-catching health warnings on every package, they will continually cater to youth and their fashions.

Indeed, in a memo released into public domain under the Master Settlement Agreement reached with tobacco companies and most of the 50 states in 1998, the profit wheel of cigarette packaging is clearly seen.

The memo was written in October 1990 from R.E. Smith, vice president of brand management to product manager J.C. Bogie. It concerned an approval recommendation for an exploratory package design for Lucky Strike cigarettes.

Pages three and four of the memo state: "...They thought it was eye catching and a different approach to packaging. Specifically they stated: It's distinguished looking; The Lucky Strike logo really stands out; It looks richer, more yuppie like; It would be great to put down on the bar; Designer brand, a Ralph Lauren design.

"Consumers mention packaging as one of the four important criteria in selecting their ideal cigarette, The four key criteria appear to be image, taste, package, price."