Countering the Tobacco Industry

Tobacco-related diseases claim an estimated 440,000 American lives each year and the tobacco industry must recruit replacement smokers. They have increasingly targeted communities of color for promotional efforts using magazine advertisements, strategically locating billboards, and sponsorship of community groups, athletic, cultural, and entertainment events. The tobacco industry has even forced their products on other countries (they played a crucial role in U.S. trade sanctions threatening South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand, forcing these countries to open their markets to imported cigarettes from the U.S. and allow cigarette advertising). Some tobacco companies have even used religion to sell their products. The only way to stop the tobacco industry from promoting their products in our communities is to counter-market their efforts.

Tobacco counter-marketing is defined as the use of commercial marketing tactics to reduce the prevalence of tobacco use.

According to Designing and Implementing an Effective Tobacco Counter-Marketing Campaign (CDC, 2003), there are seven key characteristics to successfully counter-market the tobacco industry:

A counter-marketing program must be long term.The tobacco industry took decades to establish brand identity for its products and to normalize tobacco use as a part of our culture. Likewise, tobacco control efforts should be considered long term commitments to addressing the problems associated with tobacco use, rather than short-term or episodic activities.
A comprehensive tobacco counter-marketing program should consist of integrated, not isolated, components.
The counter-marketing program must be integrated into the larger tobacco control program. Some examples include educational efforts, cessation initiatives, enforcement campaigns, and policy campaigns. Your counter-marketing goals should complement your overall tobacco control program's goals.
A counter-marketing program must be culturally and community competent. Messages and strategies should be tailored as needed to be most effective among the campaign's different target audiences.
A counter-marketing program should be strategic. Successfully managing a counter-marketing program involves making decisions about the overall direction of the program, its target audiences, creative products, implementation, and evaluation.
A counter-marketing program should be evaluated. Evaluation provides a tobacco control program with continuous updates and insights on what is working, what is not, and what changes might need to be made to ensure that the program is progressing toward achieving its goals and objectives.
A counter-marketing program should be adequately funded. Tobacco companies spend billions of dollars on advertising and promotion. To counter their promotion efforts, tobacco control programs should have sufficient resources.