I was fascinated to read in the last issue of media that tobacco
companies are "in talks to end all forms of mass market communications",
including sponsorship and point of sale activities.
Well, isn't that big of them? Let us be under no illusion that they're
doing this for ethical reasons -they're doing it to pre-empt a ban, and
show how efficient they are at self-regulation.
In reality, all that will happen is that their massive marketing spends
will move to other below-the-line activities. Because tobacco companies'
whole existences are about finding new and ever more devious ways to get
people to consume a highly dangerous, toxic product.
Smoking is one of the biggest preventable causes of death on earth: 60
million people worldwide died from smoking-related diseases between 1950
and 2000; four million a year die prematurely because they smoke - 10
million a year by 2030; half of all smokers are killed by their habit -
it wipes an average of 16 years off their lives. Yet marketing this
product is still considered acceptable.
Which brings us onto the vexed subject of agency ethics. Any agency that
complains about restrictions on tobacco marketing is trying to inflate
its own profits at the expense of people's health. I'd go further than
that - I'd argue that's true of any agency that works for a tobacco
client.
It's easy for those of us that don't work on tobacco accounts to point
the finger at those who do, to be glib about ethics, and to say that no
agency should ever work for a client whose business they don't approve
of.
That doesn't mean it shouldn't be said. The marketing industry is
consistently guilty of tortuously persuading itself that nothing it does
is really morally objectionable at all. Multinationals that exploit
workers, crush local competition and force poor-quality products on
consumers are OK because if they didn't do it, someone else would, and
if one agency didn't work for them, another would. But this is a product
that kills four million people a year, and we shouldn't touch them.
Whoever you are, and whatever you want to get off your chest, send your
rants to rant@media.com.hk, and we'll print them anonymously.
