The Relationship between Theory and Practice of Plain Packaging for Cigarettes - Coursework Example

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE OF PLAIN PACKAGING OF FOR CIGARETTES: By (Insert both names) (Name of class) (Professor’s name) (Institution) (City, State) (Date) “Discuss the relationship between the theory and practice of plain packaging for cigarettes” Introduction The function of the public communication sector within the public orb has been explored in different aspects amongst the industry practitioners and academics. Public relations professionals are also concerned that as PR gets to be more prominent, its role and people who practice it will be subjected to heightened public examination. Persuasion performs major function in the manner in which PR practitioners establish strategies in an attempt to accomplish a certain communication outcome. This paper discusses the relationship between the theory and practice of plain packaging of cigarettes. It also looks at the relationship between the arguments stated in the literature on the subject matter and the public communication practices evident on the media. Literature Review Products of tobacco are special among the consumer commodities this is because they result into premature deaths on long term consumers. Though it is not practical to prohibit the buying of an item that a lot of persons find cumbersome to quit, the governments all over the world have come to terms that it not ethical to promote tobacco use and therefore some form of legislations are needed to ban all attempts to promote tobacco. In spite of the governments’ attempts to adequately discourage smoking, some innovative forms of packing have ended up promoting tobacco. The package of a product is the “communication life-blood” of an organization that reaches out to the potential market or the general public. When one smokes, the pack of a cigarette is one of the least items that they use on regular basis which makes statements concerning smokers. Smokers take cigarette packet about 20 times out of their pocket each day and put it somewhere is for people to have a look at. That’s quite different I relation to purchasing a powder of soap in a generic packaging. Product packaging makes brands different and this is specifically critical within homogeneous consumer items for instance, cigarettes. Typeface and colors have for a long time been known to deduce particular reaction among consumers normally shaped by staunch cultural and social forces. Symbols and imagery also draw immense impact, connecting desirable attributes to specific brands. For example, Marlboro, which the world’s most famous cigarette brand can be easily noticed through its red iconic chevron. Within the public context a symbol may function as a stimulus provoking a specific reaction based on the public comprehension of the meaning. “The heraldic coat of arms on Benson and Hedges packs for example is an intangible wordless symbol which communicates perception of attested quality and status”. The Norwegian government in 1975, implemented what was a highly comprehensive ban in the world on advertisement and still qualitative survey carried out in 2003 of Norwegian young adult smokers ranging between 18 and 23 (who are born 6 to 10 years) after this law had been introduced) indicates how the tobacco sectors forges ahead to connect with this demographic by way of persuasive packaging of cigarettes. The survey highlighted how packs of cigarettes and cigarette brands provided meaning to social identity, personal characteristics and hierarchies status positions. In the accounts of the young smokers’ branded seemed to include some additional dimension to the pubic meaning of smoking in their day to day lives. There was a complaint by Ukraine at the WTO (World Trade Organization) regarding the decision by the Australia to ban logos and trademarks on tobacco products, indicating that the prohibition breaches global regulations over intellectual property. According to (Preventative Health Taskforce 2009), Australia becomes the first state to call for identical plain packaging of cigarette. As at 1 December, 2012, all the cigarettes sold in Australia will have “dark brown packets” and will have no images or logos of the company and have similar fonts for each and every brand. BATS (British American Tobacco Plc, IMP (Imperial Tobacco Plc) and the Japan Tobacco Inc are some of the major corporations which have challenged this law, that the Australian Government is propagating to include loose-leaf and cigar tobacco products. Ukraine purports that the scientific evidence through which this regulation is based was inadequate and the plain packaging law shall unreasonably curtail trade since the public health objectives for the Australia could be achieved by other methods or means (Australian Government 2010). The establishments of public health disseminates a lot of “truths” regarding lifestyle, disease and health, but unfortunately junk science is mostly the propelling force behind such authoritarian assaults on smokers, the overweight and drinkers. Scientific studies belief that promotion and advertising of tobacco are the main reasons as to why young adults start smoking and proposes that cigarettes should have plain packages in Australia. Packaging as it is suggested is simply an advertisement extension and since an ad enhances the consumption of tobacco, it is important that selling be done on plain packaging for all the products of tobacco. Sadly, neither this policy nor the belief attains the threshold of evidence-policy formulation, that calls for decisions or actions be based on systematic, rigorous best practice reviews, which are the interventions, function at best in curbing harm. Not tradition or theory, but evidence alone should drive policy. (Underwood and Ozanne 2008) states that the empirical studies on the effect advertisement of tobacco on young persons are categorically mixed. Robust independent studies have fell short of obtaining statistically important relationship between advertisements of tobacco and consumption. Such inadequate evidence is substantiated due to the fact that nations which have implemented advertising prohibitions for 25 years or higher have not witnessed statistically massive declines in the tobacco consumption. The data on prevalence and consumption from 145 countries manifests minimal evidence that the whole package of control measures of tobacco, comprising advertising bans and restrictions, have statistically important impact on prevalence of smoking in any country. Yet, Australia proposes such draconian restraints on promotion of tobacco brand through laws that require selling of cigarettes on plain packets. The evidence that supports the plain packaging is more or less the same as the one for tobacco display prohibitions, which is preposterously thin. A lot of studies indicate that plain packing shall not have any statistical impact on the tobacco consumption. Not a single of the so-called evidence concerning plain packaging of tobacco offers convincing behavioral evidence that anybody began smoking on viewing conventional ads of tobacco (Hill 2008). Other nations have rejected plain packaging. For example, Canada briefly considered plain packaging in 1994, but eventually took no action. More recently, Britain seriously examined the concept in 2008 and 2009, but the then-Labour government concluded that there was insufficient evidence to justify legislation. Tobacco Industry Reaction to the Proposed Law According to (Ferraro, Bettman and Chartrand 2009), the sector declined that tobacco packaging has effect on the consumption. For instance, the “the Tobacco Institute of New Zealand” suggested that the stimuli package comprising the application of trade mark do not interest the public who are not already in the market for the particular product. Nonetheless, there is support that privately, the sector reasons differently regarding the promotional potential of tobacco packaging. According to (Ferraro, Bettman and Chartrand 2009), a deeper look at the importance the sector places on packing originates from the global scale of its attempt to challenge the proposals for plain packing. The “plain packs group” was established to represent major industry players and they were determined not to witness plain packaging got underway anywhere irrespective of the importance and the size of the market. The sector has employed partners from the packaging industry who have indicated that this will result into loss of jobs among the packaging and printer suppliers if the generics are allowed. This group also alludes that plain packs may establish a dangerous precedent for certain commodities, for example, those having high volumes of fat, sugar, additives or chocolate, characterized in their brochure. At the beginning of 19th Century prior to the advent of radio and television, cigarette cards which were collectable were the main mode of in-pack advertising. Restrictions on tobacco advertisement over the mass media have encouraged the producers to a contemporary layback to the packs as the key avenue for promotion as (Underwood and Ozanne 2008) pointed out. The responses from the health and financial sectors on the proposed law The announcement by the Government regarding its intention to put in place plain packing got crushing support from the health department, where the spokesman stating it as “the most important national development in tobacco control since advertising was banned in the 90s” and suggesting that it was hard to exaggerate the significance of such an important reform as stated by (Preventative Health Taskforce 2009). As the health experts and health groups hailed the move, the fiscal markets seemed to look at this piece of law as a major risk for the profitability of the industry. Citigroup which is an investment bank swiftly gave a statement expression an opinion that the plain packaging of cigarettes was the gravest regulatory threat for the sector, since packing is the major crucial system tobacco firms must communicate to their customers and make their products unique. Between January 2011 to March, 2011 the group continued to raise alarm to the investors regarding the threat created by the plain packing reforms. Conclusion Fundamental public messages were outlined in support of the principal position that evidence was not sufficient to imply that plain packaging will minimize cigarette consumption. In addition it was argued that plain cigarette packaging would in actual sense increase the consumption, since companies will be compelled to compete merely on price, making tobacco products to be easily affordable even to the young person as (Ferraro, Bettman and Chartrand 2009) suggested. In an attempt to frame their public concerns regarding moral panic that children would probably take up the habit, the sector might have witnessed a commercial windfall if plain packaging ideally spurred the consumption. All studies conducted on likely impacts of plain packing was refuted as not indicating what the public would do in the course of plain packing but simply indicating what the public think they would do. Arguments that plain packing enhanced know how of health warnings too were undermined since there was no evidence to support that awareness of warnings is linked to smoking habit. The industry also tried to make matters complex by purporting that “tobacco control agencies” were not clear concerning what the plain packing would need. References: 1. Australian Government. (2010). Taking preventative action: Government's response to Australia: the healthiest country by 2020. Canberra: Department of Health and Ageing, 2010.Availablefrom: 2. Preventative Health Taskforce. (2009). Australia: the healthiest country by 2020. National Preventative Health Strategy. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia Availablefrom 3. WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (2003). New York: United Nations 2302 Available from: . Palmer A. The product. In Palmer, AJ, eds, In: Principles of marketing. London: Oxford University Press/Books, 2000. 215−38. Available from: 4. Underwood R and Ozanne J.(2008). Is your package an effective communicator? A normative framework for increasing the communicative competence of packaging. Journal of Marketing Communication: 4(4):207–20. Available from: 5. Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation. (1995). Untitled (Speech notes of a Brown and Williamson employee.) Media release. No Date. Legacy Tobacco Documents Library University of California, San Francisco [viewed September 2010]. 6. Ferraro R, Bettman J and Chartrand L.(2009). The power of strangers: The effect of incidental consumer brand encounters on brand choice. Journal of Consumer Research 35:729−41. 7. Underwood R. (2003). The communicative power of product packaging: creating brand identity via lived and mediated experience. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice 11(1):62. 8. Krugman D, Quinn W, Sung Y and Morrison M. (2008). Understanding the role of cigarette promotion and youth smoking in a changing marketing environment. Journal of Health Communication: 10(3):261−78. 9. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.(2007). Statistics on drug use in Australia 2006. Drug statistics series no. 18, AIHW cat. no. PHE 80W. Canberra: AIHW. 10. Hill D. (2008). New cigarette‐packet warnings: are they getting through? Medical Journal of Australia;148(9):478–80. Read More