Philip Morris: In Crisis Since 1952

Ivy Lee, Edward Bernays, and John Hill aside from being founding fathers of public relations also share another thing in common, they have all worked in tobacco. Bernay's used his uncle, Sigmund Freud's psychological messaging in his work with Lucky Strikes, where Lee too worked. Also Bernay's designed an enormously successful campaign directed at women for Lucky Strikes. John Hill, founder of Hill and Knowlton, was brought in by big tobacco after the health risks of their products were revealed. So as long as their has been PR, tobacco has needed it. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=How_Tobacco_and_PR_Grew_Up_Together

In 1952 Readers Digest was one of the top three most read publications in America. This was also the year they released an article entitled "Cancer by the Carton." The article shined an extremely bright light on the health risks of tobacco consumption and I could argue that the industry has been almost constantly partaking in crisis communication ever since. Face it, every time a study is published or a court case is handed down the industry has to scramble. The real "Tylenol" example for Philip Morris came after readers digest when the company had to change all their media and overhaul their image while dealing with an infuriated public that they put at risk. So what they did was start changing their tone, no more ads saying how smoking certain cigarettes makes you feel better, no more doctors endoresements, and no more callous deception. Soon after "Cancer by the Carton" the filter tried to save the industry. In 1950 no one smoked filtered cigarettes, but by 1960 they were already taking the place of the traditional non-filtered varieties. Big tobacco including Philip Morris claimed they had discovered a new innovation to make their product more healthy. New research suggests the filter may now be the least healthy component of a cigarette, but in the end it was what they needed. It was originally a quick fix to carry them through the transition and has ended up carrying the industry for over 40 years. Altria's homepage under media has a section dedicated to legislation involving Philip Morris. In 2002 a Los Angeles Jury awarded 28 billion in a case against Philip Morris (actual figure ended up being 28 million). Philip Morris' PR team talked about the frivolity of law suits in this country which is an interesting PR strategy, the tobacco company calling the government irresponsible.

The interesting thing about my company is that a 28 million dollar lawsuit barely constitutes a crisis anymore.

WE MAKE MONEY (not cigarettes)

Investor relations is where Altria is at its absolute best. As a company that has made money in virtually every economic situation, regardless of climate, people who have invested in Altria or its predecessor Philip Morris are usually glad they did so. This is no accident, if you go to Altria.com from the home page on the entire site could be taken as an investor relations tool. Every press release currently displayed on the companys homepage has to do with investor relations. Altria has a much bigger interest in maintaining good investor relations because the companys work in other forms of PR is often ineffective. My grandfather always tells me if I buy stock I should look at Altria because of its consistent performance and despite its moral downfalls. He tells me this because Altria from its website down to its mailings and emails is focused on easing the minds of investors. When a company admits its customer base is dwindling every passing year and it increases net revenues ten percent in a year as Altria has you know they have strong brand loyalty and strong investor confidence. I imagine most of the man hours spent doing PR for Altria are spent on these two things. In fact the company goes as far as to predict that if you invested 100 dollars in Altria in 2002 it would be worth over 300 today well above the market average and their so called peer stocks. That information is posted at the following link http://www.altria.com/AnnualReport/ar2007/2007ar_09_0100_01.aspx

Community Relations in Marlboro Country

When you are the public relations person for a company like Altria Group or Philip Morris USA much of your job is spent combating negative media and quietly creating good media. The reputation is so bad that they can't even make grand gestures of good will because inevitably it will lead to protestors getting equal coverage and the effort being all for naught. So all this as a precursor Altria certainly does its fair shair of charity work and were it a company in good public standard would probably be heralded as one of the more generous major corporations in the US. Last year they gave away around 2.5 billion dollars to various charitable organizations including those that make youth anti-smoking and smokers cessastion advertising. They lead the cause of the "We Card" program that we have all seen in local gas stations and convenience stores to prevent minors from purchasing cigarettes. Also Altria gives to the Richmond Public School System where the major Philip Morris factory is located.

Come to Marlboro Country

The brand that is literally the crown jewel of the Altria empire is Marlboro. Being the premiere tobacco giant in the United States since the end of World War II, Marlboro has gone through an evolution in branding. Originally because of the domination of Chesterfield, Camel, and Lucky Strike with returning World War I soldiers Marlboro's were originally billed as a lady's cigarette. After Readers Digest introduced the world to the health risks of smoking and filter cigarettes became the norm Marlboro was able to use strategic marketing to corner the business. The creation of two very successful brand imaging campaigns pushed Marlboro over the top in the early fifties as the number one American cigarette. Marlboro Country was the original campaign which used images of the wild west to create an Americana themed campaign. A continuation of this effort lead to the creation of the Marlboro man whose 1967 image is shown above. The Marlboro man was the embodiment of the rugged, male American usually smoking while doing ranch work or riding horseback. Both of these campaigns were enormously successful. As time went on restrictions on cigarette advertisement became increasingly severe. No more could the tobacco giant use TV, radio, or print to advertise its products. Now for Philip Morris, Altria, and Marlboro the name of the game is brand loyalty. The current Marlboro website consists of two links one taking you to Philip Morris USA's website and one takes you to a "Smokers Sign Up" which is an email list where smokers can recieve coupons and benefits. Philip Morris USA's website is quite modest. The imagery is of tobacco plants as opposed to cigarettes and the language is also quite guarded. Almost right of the bat they acknowlege there customer base is shrinking. The first paragraph under the heading "marketing our cigarettes" ends with this sentence, "While we want to grow our market share within the cigarette industry, we do not want adults to start smoking nor do we want kids to start smoking." So thats a sizable prediciment to grow your income while looking to gain zero new customers. The approach now is all about beating the competetion in loyalty and in public opinion. We see ads encouraging quitting smoking or against underage use and many of them are in fact sponsored by Philip Morris. This ads dissuade use but somehow bulster public opinion. Also you dont see R.J. Reynolds doing the same kind of ads so they're clearly trying to maintain an advantage in exposure despite the advertising ban. Its a backwards world for cigarette branding and sometimes you have to lose multiple battles in order to keep winning the war. But it won't be long before fast food giants, soft drink empires, and struggling auto makers will be in similar boats. There is a lot to be learned about brand enhancement by the way Marlboro and Altria have maintained success. Everything that could have possibly gone wrong for this company has and they still dominate their industry, granted the industry shares its problems because of the product they produce. Although in my opinion in the long run they know they probably won't exist in 100 years they know smoking is on its way out they just want the ride to go as long as possible.

Media Relations

The media section of Altria.com looks more like a financial page then a media relations site. There is a littany of financial information as well as information on various court decisions effecting the tobacco industry. The company provides a lot of extras however to encourage coverage. There are a multitude of press releases as well as more provided B-roll then any corporate website I have ever seen. These are placed on the web to facilitate media personnel in pursuing stories. In my internship we would offer things like B-roll at the end of the pitch to sweeten the offer. The one thing this section of the website does is provide the appearance of transparency by offering a lot of information. Litigation, government information, financial reporting, etc are all covered on this section of the web page. Also it furthers my personal thought that Altria would have people think first about how much money they make as opposed to what product they make.

You can teach an old dog some new tricks...

When one thinks of companies that would be extremely successful reaching thier targets with new media Altria Group probably does not spring to mind. There website shows no corporate blog or endless message boards where people can voice their concerns about the evil tobacco industry. But if you look a little bit deeper you will find that the company has been forced to show a bit of its softer side. On their homepage Altria.com there are two tabs relating to this topic, there is a media tab, and a responsibility tab. The media tab shows people where they can gain access to media contacts at the company, b-roll for those in television, and logos for those in print. Under responsibility however Altria specifically frames its image as a responsible company who more important than making cigarettes make a lot of money. Under the responsibility tab there are some glimpses of new media. There is an RSS news feed and also and email list sign up. These are both corporate information gathering tools. I believe the prospect of new media is not something as beneficial for a company like Altria as it would be for a company like Jet Blue when they were trying to break their negative image. Jet Blue could have used blogs, feeds, executive openness etc. to improve their bad standing at the time. The bad standing Altria has for being a virtual front company to Philip Morris and John Middleton is not something thats going away so they don't tend to be overactive in battles for new media.

Introduction

I chose Altria Group as my company because of the unique challenges that one faces in current times representing a company that produces a product as contreversial as cigarettes. Altria Group is basically comprised of three major businesses. Philip Morris Tobacco is the first and is the biggest producer of cigarettes in the world. Also Altria includes John Middletown, a major cigar and pipe tobacco producer, and a large voting stake in Miller Brewing the second largest brewing company in the world.
The common place acceptability of smoking that existed for generations has now all but disappeared, leaving the PR people for this company the daunting task a selling an unpopular product and an unpopular/unhealthy lifestyle. My grandparents are stock holders in Altria (and also smokers) and it has been the best performing stock they have had over the last few years. So the debate has become how can PR people make this a respectable company both to consumers and potential investors.
Their efforts to draw public good will have included extensive advertising to disuade underage smoking. This is their way of saying we are not the company we were when we ignored the health concerns of smoking and used cartoon images to encourage youth smoking. The biggest problem with this is getting their publics to actually believe a conglamorated tobacco company would actually try to talk people out of smoking cigarettes.
In the movie Thank You For Smoking one of the heads of PR for major tobacco describes cigarettes this way, "Our products are cool, addictive, and available they practically sell themselves." This was once a very true statement although public opinion is trying to change that perception and so is Altria. They can no longer afford to look like the callous big tobacco company of old if they want to procede in the modern market. This company's forced reimaging and their natural contreversy are the reasons I thought they would make for an interesting blog.