Oral

As tobacco marketing restrictions increase, tobacco companies increasingly use communication channels and tactics that are out of sight of public health professionals. Many of these strategies exploit loopholes in current marketing restrictions, and are more difficult to monitor than mass communications to the general public. This session presents analyses of tobacco industry documents that demonstrate how and why tobacco companies developed several of these strategies, including: lifestyle marketing linking tobacco and alcohol use, permission-based advertising using direct mail, and interpersonal viral or guerilla marketing. The implications of these strategies for tobacco control will be discussed. This session also includes two examples of how insights from analyzing tobacco industry documents and tobacco advertisements can be used to inform tobacco control campaigns. Understanding tobacco industry strategies may help identify more effective counter-marketing tactics, and tobacco marketing research tools may be used to define novel intervention targets.

Session Objectives: 1. Identify three tobacco industry marketing tactics of increasing importance in the current environment. 2. Describe how and why covert marketing strategies benefit tobacco companies. 3. Compare tobacco industry marketing strategies and public health counter-marketing strategies.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)