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