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.