Moving online: Tobacco brands' use of digital marketing

Background/Objective: Internet marketing e-mails and brand websites are recent tobacco industry tactics for advertising brands and connecting with consumers. Tobacco brand e-mail allows tobacco companies to reach consumers quickly and directly and lead them to tobacco brand websites for further brand exposure and interaction. These websites not only provide information about products, but also involving experiential content. This presentation will describe the contents and advantages of these digital channels.

Methods: Results are obtained through review of previously secret tobacco industry documents, general literature on Internet marketing, surveillance of six cigarette brand websites over a 3 year period, and content analysis of over 150 tobacco brand e-mails from the Trinkets and Trash Collection.

Results: Like direct mail, tobacco e-mails serve a number of functions, including promoting new products, providing updates about promotions/programs (e.g. sweepstakes), informing about “smokers' rights” issues, soliciting consumer feedback and driving smokers to brand websites. These websites include relationship-building features such as games, message boards and lifestyle content intended to engage users and incent return visits. Importantly, both channels allow tobacco companies to track smokers' message exposure (e.g., frequency of visits) and build their databases of consumer information. According to documents, the convergence of these techniques with other offline types of marketing work to strengthen overall brand power.

Conclusions: These digital marketing channels are relevant to today's technology and offer the industry significant advantages, not the least of which is the ability to transmit information under the radar screen of the public health community.