Promotion And Price Analysis

5 Pages 1234 Words

The tobacco industry consists of many competitors trying to satisfy a specific customer need. Companies such as Philip Morris, RJ Reynolds, Brown and Williamson, and Lorillard hold almost the entire market share in the tobacco industry. While each company has different advertising and marketing techniques, they all target the same customer group. Tobacco companies try their best to generate interest in their particular brand or brands. Companies market a number of attributes that usually include, but are not limited to: taste, flavor, strength, size and image in order to distinguish themselves from competitors. However, all tobacco companies are satisfying the same needs.
The tobacco industry has many ways they convey their promotional messages. They have limited media coverage due to government restrictions that have been placed over the past two decades. The tobacco companies have been prohibited from advertising on television and radio, and even more recently from billboards and outdoor posters because of the harmful side effects their products may cause. Since so many channels of marketing are closed for the tobacco industry, magazines are the most common method of advertising. Even with magazines and other legal forms of advertising, tobacco makers are still running into restrictions. In each magazine advertisement, a Surgeon General's warning is required to appear with information about tobacco-related health risks that the product may lead toward. Companies have also been required to create advertisements solely about the harmful consequences of using tobacco products. These ads were a result of an advertising war between the tobacco industry and anti-tobacco campaigns. The tobacco companies were mocking the ads and celebrating those who continued to use tobacco.
The government intervened and required the "tobacco warning advertisements" for all tobacco companies. The government has also intervened with tobacco marketing b...