![]() Tobacco-control officer Arora, a short, mustachioed man with a gruff demeanor, sent a letter to Philip Morris and other tobacco companies in mid-April, giving them until the end of the month to remove all advertisements. British American Tobacco Plc and Indian state-run companies have large, passive stakes in ITC, which controls about 80 percent of the market. The country’s largest cigarette maker, ITC Ltd, uses similar tactics, such as advertising at kiosks. Philip Morris is not alone in using marketing methods that Indian officials say are illegal. Tobacco use kills more than 900,000 people a year in India, and the World Health Organization estimates that tobacco-related diseases cost the country about $16 billion annually. Of those, about two-thirds smoke traditional hand-rolled cigarettes. “India remains a high potential market with huge upside with cigarette market still in infancy,” says a 2014 internal document.Īccording to government data, India has about 100 million smokers. With cigarette sales declining in many countries, Philip Morris has identified India, population 1.3 billion, as a market with opportunity for significant growth. A study published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2002 found that during the 1990s, “tobacco industry sponsorship of bars and nightclubs increased dramatically, accompanied by cigarette brand paraphernalia, advertisements, and entertainment events in bars and clubs.” ![]() In targeting young adults, Philip Morris is deploying a promotional strategy that it and other tobacco companies used in the United States decades ago. The company’s goal is to make sure that “every adult Indian smoker should be able to buy Marlboro within walking distance,” according to another 2015 strategy document. Reuters is publishing a selection of those documents in a searchable repository, The Philip Morris Files. In recent years, they have helped to more than quadruple Marlboro’s market share in India, where the company is battling to expand its reach in the face of an entrenched local giant. In them, Philip Morris presents these promotions as key marketing activities. Philip Morris’ marketing strategy for India, which relies heavily on kiosk advertising and social events, is laid out in hundreds of pages of internal documents reviewed by Reuters that cover the period from 2009 to 2016. A man smokes next to a cigarette advertisement hung on a tree at a marketplace in New Delhi. A key goal is “winning the hearts and minds of LA-24,” those between legal age, 18, and 24, according to one slide in a 2015 commercial review presentation.Īs with the point-of-sale ads at kiosks, public health officials say that giving away cigarettes is a violation of India’s Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act and its accompanying rules. In internal documents, Philip Morris International is explicit about targeting the country’s youth. These include tobacco shop displays as well as the free distribution of Marlboro – the world’s best-selling cigarette brand – at nightclubs and bars frequented by young people. In response to questions from Reuters, he said the company’s advertising is “compliant with Indian law” and that Philip Morris has “fully cooperated with the enforcement authorities” on the matter.īut government officials say Philip Morris is using methods that flout the nation’s tobacco-control regulations. ![]() Venkatesh says Philip Morris is doing nothing wrong. Like other tobacco companies, Philip Morris kept up its ad blitz. Venkatesh, and told him the signs were an unequivocal violation of Indian law. Early last year, Arora said, he met with a Philip Morris director for corporate affairs in India, a man named R. That included the Indian arm of Philip Morris International Inc, the world’s largest publicly traded tobacco company. In official letters and face-to-face meetings, he told them India’s tobacco control laws barred such public advertising and promotion of cigarettes. The chief tobacco control officer at the Delhi government, Arora asked the major cigarette companies to put a stop to the cat-and-mouse routine.
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