01-03-2005 06:47									#1
	How I would destroy the tobacco companies Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Firstly, whilst I am not a smoker, I do enjoy the odd cigar every now and again... I am also a business/marketing strategist by profession.

Most countries around the world have banned or controlled cigarette advertisements and enacted legislation to curb the places where one can light up. Furthermore, most jurisdications mandate a government health warning in one form or another.

Every smoker I have talked to has their preferred brand (Malboro light, Dunhill, Silkcut etc etc etc etc) or will buy a certain brand due to advertising or promotion.

What I would propose, if I were the preverbial emperor for a day, would be to ban all forms of branding, promotion or marketing (except for government health warnings) on cigarette packets. Ergo, the only thing you would see on the store shelf would be a small white carboard box with the warning that smoking may harm your unborn baby.

How would this control or bring down the tobacco companies you ask?

Well I shall answer that with a question. If you can not tell which brand you are buying (due to the lack of promotion or branding on the packet) how can you buy your favourite malboros, silkcuts or dunhills? The confusion would mean that consumers would get gradually cheesed off as they would continually be smoking something other than their brand and the companies would be unable to forecast sales.

As the only differeniation between manufacturers/distributors would be price (advertsing and branding having been curtailed), rival companies would be discounting eachother for any form of market leverage. Of course, over time, this would eat into profit margins and gradually erode the value of these companies assets. People invest in companies with records of solid planning, good governance and reliable track performance. If sales are random, track record becomes worthless and planning becomes non-existent, thus accelerating the capital flight.

Additionally, how would the same companies be able to forecast sales if they had no marketing data to base their production figures on? As sales, and by extension production companies, will experience massive fluctuations due to random sales figures, the producers (farmers of tobacco) would be unable to plant with any degree of certainty of selling their crop and would over a period of time be forced to plant more stable cash crops to ensure a modicum of enconomic stability.

Please feel free to puncture holes in this idea....

	01-03-2005 06:48									#2
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How would I destroy the tobacco companies?

Not buy their product.

	01-03-2005 06:52									#3
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Nukes

	01-03-2005 06:54									#4
	Tired of ads?

It's a good idea.

My uncle had a good idea a while ago aswell, he said the problem is that cigs are too easy to get and too easy to see. They are in supermarkets and local shops, whereas they should be restricted to just liquor shops.


If you applied both ideas, you could phase out cigs very quickly.

The trick is to try and get everyone to stop smoking, before taking cigs off the market, otherwise you're going to create a blackmarket that can't be controlled.

	01-03-2005 06:55									#5
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Bah, the companies will just get known by the price of one pack.

"I'd take one 3€22 and two 3€15 please"

	01-03-2005 07:00									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Sn00py My uncle had a good idea a while ago aswell, he said the problem is that cigs are too easy to get and too easy to see. They are in supermarkets and local shops, whereas they should be restricted to just liquor shops. If you applied both ideas, you could phase out cigs very quickly.

In France, you will find cigarettes only in bars and liquor shops. Plenty of people go to these places exclusively to buy cigarettes, and not to consume anything else the place has to offer.

	01-03-2005 07:27									#7
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Nothing. I just hate it when I lit a cigarette and know it's the last and nowhere to get more.

In my opinion it should be a case for the government to secure that there are a tobacco sale close to everyone 24 hours a day.

	01-03-2005 21:09									#8
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Although I hate tobacco (I've smoked and/or chewed for years, now in the process of quitting)

It is greatly responsible for making America what it is, economically and otherwise... it was our 1st export afterall (iirc). ...so it can't be all bad

Let people smoke, keep the money rolling in!!!!

Just keep it away from me and my family . (unless I'm really jonesing )

	01-03-2005 21:26									#9
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

If you could differentiate pricing, word would get out and meanwhile they would pump up their advertising to Asia and Africa and every country where your law does not apply.

If it did hurt enough, tobacco companies would merge operations and smokers would soon find a new favorite from among the available price choices.

	01-03-2005 21:55									#10
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Just declare nicotine (and all nicotine dlivery systems) a controlled substance

	01-03-2005 23:33									#11
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I dunno, atomant. The lack of branding and marketing doesn't seem to hurt sales of illegal drugs. and the big tobacco companies are all diversified across many multinational industries. These companies hedged their bets al long time ago.

I think the key is to make itobacco (nicotine) a controlled substance, ineligible for medical coverage, and keep raising taxes until it becomes a true luxury item.

Heck, even now, you can buy nicotine products (gum etc) OTC in drug stores. It's marketed as "medicine" -- one of the all-time ironic product positioning platforms.

Marketing is a powerful thing, but so is addiction.

	02-03-2005 02:31									#12
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Smoking can make you die!!

	02-03-2005 04:20									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Atahualpa Smoking can make you die!!

So can living or rather - if you dare to try to live, you are guranteed to die.

	02-03-2005 05:56									#14
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At the liquor store I work at, we have rows upon rows of cigarettes which are sold to customers. Being the nice guy I am, if the packet I pick up has the "smoking kills" warning on the front, I grab another packet and put the "killer" packet back. The ironic side-effect of this is that almost all of the front packets end up reading "smoking kills".

	02-03-2005 08:46									#15
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I miss smoking... it was fun

smoking only causes birth defects. Must of been buying from Skanky.

	02-03-2005 11:34									#16
	Put an end to popups!

quote: Originally posted by pchang Just declare nicotine (and all nicotine dlivery systems) a controlled substance

I thought of making tobacco a controlled substance, but smoking is that well entrenched in society that it would be difficult. We have all heard of the arguement that "you can't take away my right to smoke" by people being interviewed on the TV. Afterall, I am one of the people that does enjoy the odd tobacco (cigar)

What I am doing is not taking people right to smoke, but their ability to choose. A free market is about choice, take that basic freedom away and the market either disappears, is replaced or goes underground.

Prohibition was tried in the states, and failed, therefore, making tobacco a prescribed function would merely drive it underground and perpetuate the market. What my plan proposes is letting the producers destroy themselves.

Yes monopolies in the market may try and emerge, but corporations themselves are greedy and will try and get market share any way, any how. Additional, most western economies have legislation in place to control monopolistic and/or cartel practices.

Still, I take on board everyones thoughts, enlightening.

	02-03-2005 11:38									#17
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quote: Originally posted by -Jrabbit I dunno, atomant. The lack of branding and marketing doesn't seem to hurt sales of illegal drugs. Marketing is a powerful thing, but so is addiction.

Good points JR, I think (and am willing to be corrected) availability of illicit substances is directly proportionate to production and the level of enforcement. The more enforcement, the less supply.

For example, what would happen to the herion trade if the Afgan or American government decided to fire bomb all the poppy fields? The same would be applicable to the coke fields in Columbia.

	02-03-2005 12:26									#18
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The Colombian cocaine producers would turn back to Bolivia for their coca, in that case.

JR: while it's obviously not on the same level as the tobacco industry, there is most definitely branding going on in the world of illicit drugs. One prime example is the beginning of the "crack epidemic", which started when a relatively small-time dealer in LA began pre-cooking the coke for his customers, who were previously just buying his powder and cooking it themselves for freebasing, and selling it as "Ready Rock." On a smaller level, most of the drug users I know have a preferred dealer for drug quality (not to say price and availability don't sometimes outweigh that factor), and often prefer different dealers for different drugs. Either way, "Joe's stuff" becomes a brand in its own right.

	02-03-2005 12:45									#19
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quote: Originally posted by BlackCat So can living or rather - if you dare to try to live, you are guranteed to die.

Good, you've figured out the irony

	02-03-2005 13:45									#20
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quote: Originally posted by -Jrabbit I dunno, atomant. The lack of branding and marketing doesn't seem to hurt sales of illegal drugs. and the big tobacco companies are all diversified across many multinational industries. These companies hedged their bets al long time ago. I think the key is to make itobacco (nicotine) a controlled substance, ineligible for medical coverage, and keep raising taxes until it becomes a true luxury item. Heck, even now, you can buy nicotine products (gum etc) OTC in drug stores. It's marketed as "medicine" -- one of the all-time ironic product positioning platforms. Marketing is a powerful thing, but so is addiction.

Making tobacco a luxury item is just going to make it into a huge illegal drug problem, with all of the murder etc. that that entails. Not a good idea.

Nicotine gum / nasal spray etc. delivers a mostly harmless substance (nicotine) in a mostly harmless way in place of having it delivered in a much more harmful way. Some of it requires a prescription (!) and all of it is expensive. This stuff should be cheaper than smokes and all of it should be available OTC.

	02-03-2005 14:02									#21
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quote: Originally posted by pchang Just declare nicotine (and all nicotine dlivery systems) a controlled substance

If it's as harmful as 'they' say, it's shameful that it isn't.

	02-03-2005 14:32									#22
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Smoking is pretty unusual here. Admittedly, other tobacco products are more common, like snuff, but they're pretty harmless in comparison and don't pester the surrounding environment in the same way.

Basically, the thing that has killed off smoking is not lawmaking, it's social stigma, which in turn has been enacted through simple, gradual policymaking. From a country that collectively lit up just thirty years ago today smokers are very few and constantly bullied by regulations.

The steps to take are:

(a) Ban smoking in all government offices, excepting special smoking rooms. Private enterprise soon follows suit.

(b) Ban smoking indoors in government facilities. Private enterprise soon does the same.

(c) Let government-owned housing companies ban indoor smoking.

(c) Ban smoking near entrances in government facilities, and have people stand some 25 metres away in the middle of some freezing-cold courtyard.

	02-03-2005 18:28									#23
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Personally, I think ppl should have the right to smoke, just not at the expense of others. The issue of 2nd hand smoke makes this problematic. But in the privacy of one's home or car, who cares what people do?

The difference between the public health issue and the personal freedom issue is easily confused.

Buck's point is an excellent one, and I think we're seeing it happen.

In the past 20 years, the US has gone from open smoking to heavy restrictions in public areas. Smoking is illegal and smokers shunned at most group gatherings, both public (restaurants, arenas) and private (parties). The smokers are literally outcasts, slinking away outside to indulge their habit.