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Plain packaging, also known as generic, standardised or homogenous packaging, refers to packaging that has had the attractive promotional aspects of tobacco product packaging removed and the appearance of all tobacco packs is standardised. Except for the brand name (which would be required to be written in a standard typeface, colour and size), all other trademarks, logos, colour schemes and graphics would be prohibited. The package itself would be required to be plain coloured (such as white or brown) and to display only the product content information, consumer information and health warnings required by law.(1)
Plain packaging is important because it would help to reduce smoking uptake amongst children and young people. Plain packaging is also supported by the Chief Medical Officer and many other experts and international bodies.(2)
Packaging as advertising
In 2003, the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act came into effect which prohibited virtually all forms of tobacco advertising and promotion, i.e. advertising in print media, on billboards and in the form of direct marketing were all prohibited. By July 2005, sponsorship of sport by tobacco companies was also prohibited. The only tobacco advertising currently permitted is a single A5 sized image at the point of sale. Consequently, tobacco packaging remains the most ubiquitous form of tobacco advertising. EU law defines tobacco advertising as “any form of commercial communication with the aim or direct or indirect effect of promoting a tobacco product”. Smokers display the branding every time they take out their pack to smoke. In doing so they are making a statement about how they want to be seen by others as they display and endorse the brand they have chosen. The importance of the pack as a communication tool is acknowledged by marketing and tobacco industry observers as the quotes overleaf illustrate:
“It is the communication life-blood of the firm... the silent salesman” (3)
“It is a promotional tool in its own right” (4)
“It is a total opportunity for communications… a carefully planned brand or information communications campaign” (5)
“In this struggle to win over smokers, the pack and its messages have become increasingly important weapons.” (6)
Branding recruits children and young people to a life-time of addiction
Tobacco companies invest huge sums of money in advertising and marketing their products in order to recruit new customers, who are nearly always children and young people. Two thirds (66%) of regular smokers start before the age of 18 – the legal minimum age for the purchase of tobacco – and two fifths (39%) start before the age of 16.(7) Of those who take up smoking, only about half will manage to stop before they die.(8) Currently more than 80,000 people die prematurely from smoking related diseases every year in England alone.The UK Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act has been effective in removing overt promotional activity and has brought about a consequent reduction in awareness of tobacco marketing amongst the young.(9) However, since the implementation of the Act, the tobacco industry has responded by investing more resources into packaging design (as well as point of sale display) in order to communicate brand imagery and increase sales. Research shows that this has already had an effect: between 2002 and 2006 there was an increase in the proportion of young people aware of new pack design from 11% at 2002 to 18% in 2006.(9)
Lambert & Butler – case study
In a presentation to an industry conference in 2006, Imperial Tobacco’s Global Brand Director, Geoff Good, acknowledged that the tobacco advertising ban in the UK had “effectively banned us from promoting all tobacco products” and noted that “In this challenging environment, the marketing team have to become more creative” adding: “We therefore decided to look at pack design.”
Focusing on the UK’s most popular cigarette brand, Lambert & Butler, Imperial developed a new version of the Lambert & Butler brand to mark its 25th anniversary in the UK market. The “Celebration” packs were launched in November 2004 as a 4-month special edition, replacing the original pack until February 2005. According to Good: “The effect was very positive. Already the no.1 brand, our share grew by over 0.4% during this period — that might not sound a lot — but it was worth over £60 million in additional turnover and a significant profit improvement.”
Good concludes: “Often in marketing, it is difficult to isolate the effects of individual parts of the mix. But in this case, because the UK had become a dark market, the pack design was the only part of the mix that was changed, and therefore we knew the cause and effect.”
Good, G. Global Brand Director, Imperial Tobacco Group plc. Presentation at UBS Tobacco Conference, 1 December 2006
http://www.imperial-tobacco.com/files/financial/presentation/011206/ubs_transcript.pdfEstablished adult smokers rarely change the brand of tobacco they smoke and the vast majority know which brand they will ask for before they walk into a shop.(10) (11) Therefore, new, young smokers are the primary target of industry marketing. Brand imagery is much more important to younger age groups and they respond more effectively to it than older groups.(12) Moving to plain packaging would therefore reduce brand appeal and reduce smoking initiation.
Branding gives the misleading impression some cigarettes are safer than others
The EU Tobacco Product Directive (13) states that: “texts, names, trade marks and figurative or other signs suggesting that a particular tobacco product is less harmful than others shall not be used on the packaging of tobacco products.”Since the implementation of the law in 2003, the tobacco industry has been required to remove descriptors such as ‘light’ or ‘mild’ which might mislead consumers. However, the legacy of ‘low-tar’ advertising has resulted in certain colours such as white and silver being associated with ‘lighter’ or ‘lower-tar’ products giving the impression that they are less harmful than regular brands. The continuing use of colours as indicators of ‘less harmful’ brands by the tobacco industry can be viewed as being in contravention of the law.
Research commissioned by ASH to examine consumer perceptions of brands found that both adult and young people were significantly more likely to rate packages with the term “smooth”, “gold” and “silver” as lower tar, lower health risk, and easier to quit compared to “regular” varieties of the same brands.(14)
Plain packaging would increase the effectiveness of health warnings & reduce misconceptions about the risks of smoking
Although there is good evidence to show that large bold written health warnings are effective in motivating smokers to quit (15) and that picture warnings are even more effective than written warnings,(16) tobacco branding lessens the impact of the warning message.(17)As part of the ASH research referred to above, respondents were asked to compare plain versions of Mayfair and Lambert & Butler varieties in which the colour and stylistic features of the pack were removed, leaving only the name of the brands printed against either a brown or white background. The findings indicate that removing the colour and brand design not only reduces the attractiveness of brands, but also reduces misleading perceptions of tar delivery and risk between varieties.
This is especially true for young people who were significantly less likely to believe some brands are less harmful and lower in tar than others when shown brands in generic packaging compared to normal branded packs. The young people also found plain packaging far less attractive than branded packs. Similarly, research among adult smokers in Australia found that cigarette packs that displayed progressively fewer branding design elements were perceived increasingly unfavourably by smokers.(18)
Plain packaging would prevent the use of brand variants as a promotional tool
The importance of the pack design as a means of increasing brand visibility can be seen by the huge growth in brand variants in recent years. The number of variants of cigarette brands has risen by over a third since 1998 in what appears to be a direct response to the inability of the industry to market products elsewhere. For example in 1998, there were 5 variants of the Mayfair brand but by 2008 the brand was available in seventeen formats. Figure 1 shows the overall growth in cigarette brand variants during the ten year period from 1998 to 2008.The growth in brand variants has occurred despite the fact that many consumers cannot detect differences in taste between brands. As a BAT document reveals: “One of every two smokers is not able to distinguish in blind (masked) tests between similar cigarettes... for most smokers and the decisive group of new, younger smokers, the consumer’s choice is dictated more by psychological, image factors than by relatively minor differences in smoking characteristics.”(19)
The increased number of different brands enables greater visibility at point of sale displays for the brand family with more packs bearing the logo and brand features being stacked side by side. This has resulted in larger point of sale displays in order to stock a greater number of varieties and to utilise the increasing visual appeal of the packaging.
Tobacco Industry views on plain packaging
According to Phillip Morris International the world’s major manufacturers have agreed to fight the introduction of plain packaging stating that they “do not want to see plain packaging introduced anywhere regardless of the size and importance of the market.”(20)
What industry analysts say about plain packaging:
“regulations... have to date neither undermined industry profitability nor led to commoditization of the cigarette category. However, a ban on conventional packaging graphics could prove to be a very different matter.”(21)
“Plain packaging would significantly reduce the power of tobacco brands.” “The industry is so profitable only because consumers are willing to pay a premium of £1.50 for certain brands. We think this measure would cause a rapid worsening of the downtrading trend. Over time this would hurt profitability significantly.”(22)
“Clearly, smokers won’t like it. However, I suspect that the majority of the population that does not smoke will be in favour of the proposal. Anything which boosts the public health is good.”(23)
(1) Consultation on the future of tobacco control. Department of Health, 2008
(2) On the state of the public health. Report of the Chief Medical Officer, 2003. Other supporters include: Dr. David Kessler, former Commissioner, US Food and Drug Administration (2001); Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Health (1994); World Conference on Tobacco or Health (1994).
(3) Underwood R L, Ozanne J. Is your package an effective communicator? A normative framework for increasing the communicative competence of packaging. J Market Commun 1998: 4: 207-20
(4) Palmer A. The product, Principles of Marketing, Oxford University Press, 2000
(5) Mawditt N. Putting pack opportunities into the frame. World Tobacco. 2006: 212: 36-7
(6) Staff Report. Rethinking cigarette packs for a new age. Tobacco Int 1991 Mar 1: 14
(7) Smoking and drinking among adults. General Household Survey 2006. ONS, 2007
(8) Aveyard P & West R. Managing smoking cessation. BMJ 2007; 335: 37-41
(9) Point of sale of tobacco products. The Centre for Tobacco Control Research, 2008
(10) Wakefield, M. The effect of retail cigarette pack displays on impulse purchase. Addiction. 2008. Volume 103. Issue 2. Pages: 322-328
(11) Department of Health. Consultation on the future of tobacco control. 2008
(12) Beyond Smoking Kills. ASH, 2008
(13) European Union Directive COD 2001/0119
(14) Hammond D, Dockrell M, Arnott D, Lee A, Anderson S, McNeill A. The impact of cigarette pack design on perceptions of risk among UK adult and youth: evidence in support of plain packaging regulations. Beyond Smoking Kills, ASH, 2008
(15) NHS Smoking helpline. Department of Health press release, 27 Sept. 2008.
(16) Hammond E et al. Effectiveness of cigarette warning labels in informing smokers about the risks of smoking: findings from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Four Country Survey. Tobacco Control 2006; 15 (suppl iii): 19-25.
(17) ASH. Where next for tobacco control? March 2008
(18) Wakefield M, Germain D, and Durkin S. How does increasingly plainer cigarette packaging influence adult smokers’ perceptions about brand image? An experimental study. Tobacco Control, 2008
(19) British American Tobacco. The vanishing media. BAT 1978. Cited in: Freeman B. Chapman S. Rimmer M. The case for the plain packaging of tobacco products. Addiction 2007; 103: 580-590
(20) Dangoor D. PMI corporate affairs meeting, Rye Brook 950215 & 950216. In: Pim P. I. M., editor. Philip Morris; 1995: 2048207342/7346.
(21) Plain packaging is a serious threat but quite unlikely. Morgan Stanley, 2008
(22) Material new risk appears: UK Govt. suggests plain packaging. Citigroup, 2008
(23) Spielman A. Little hope in appealing to natural justice. Tobacco Journal International, September 2008
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