Have you heard of the electronic cigarette? It is basically a smoke-free cigarette operated by battery that enables smokers to accomplish the smoking gesture while providing some sort of fix without providing any nuisance (think second-hand smoking) to non-smokers. It is one the responses to the smoking bans in public places that have been happening across the world.
Well, while there is a bit of a grey area regarding the status of those products (smoking-cessation device or not? FDA approved or not?), it seems that in major countries such as the US and the UK their usage is -for now- unrestricted. And while there are still some questions and restrictions as regards the potential health concerns aligned with those products, I am convinced that it is a matter of time before there is one fully harmless solution in the market both to users and people surrounding them. Big Tobacco had been trying for years already as for example Philip Morris here but I believe that the way of the future is electronic or related.
Why the hell am I bringing this up? Well because once there is one harmless solution in the market, then there should not be any restriction on advertising them, right? Big Tobacco, forbidden to advertise for years, could start advertising again, leveraging the electronic cigarette 2.0 as a Trojan horse for their own brands. And the “beauty” is that it would -almost- not affect their brand equities as the electronic cigarette is not an anti-smoking product rather than an alternative to the banning in public places.
Think about all the dollars that the Tobacco had been saving over the years from advertising. If I am right, for better or worse, let’s prepare ourselves to seeing more of those damn legs on our TV screens again.
Filed under: business, Ich'sms, thoughts Tagged: | big tobacco, business, cigarette advertising, electronic cigarette, future of tobacco industry, LinkedIn, tobacco industry
