Examination of Witnesses (Questions 700
- 719)
THURSDAY 20 JANUARY 2000
MR M MACLENNAN,
MR C MACLEOD,
MR N MUSTOE
AND MR
P BAINSFAIR
700 Presumably what you do would not just relate
to price, it would relate to the image. What kind of image do
you project which would appeal to lower income purchasers? Can
you give me an example?
(Mr MacLennan) I do not think it works
quite as you suspect it does. Often you communicate the price,
you come up with something you hope people will notice, the target
audience, whoever you are targeting, will notice. I should like
to make the point that our audience is always adult smokers, that
is whom we are targeting and that is what we are trying to do
to make one brand stand up over and above other brands.
Chairman: There is one area we may wish to explore,
bearing in mind that everyone who comes here, certainly from the
industry side, stresses the fact that it is adults being targeted.
It seems interesting that we have so many young smokers, but perhaps
we can explore that later on in this session.
Dr Stoate
701 Suggestions are made in the papers we have
received that companies, with your assistance, might aim to create
specific brands for women, students, young men or lads. Do you
have any qualms about these ideas?
(Mr MacLennan) As long as it is adults,
no, I do not. It is true that one does develop brands to appeal
more to certain sectors of the population.
702 If you have no qualms about it, just to pick
up on something submitted by your company under the title "Male,
Laddish, Blokey" it says "Opportunity exists, therefore,
for a male targeted brand, perhaps co-branded with Loaded or with
scantily clad women on the cigarette paper". What sort of
image do you think that projects and what image are you trying
to project with that type of approach?
(Mr MacLennan) I think the context of
the documents is important and I should just like to comment on
that. When you are developing something like that what you have
is people sitting round a room like this and coming up with ideas.
Some of them are stupid, some of them are wrong; it is brainstorming
and that applies to the previous document, let us say the "Jowell"
document. The rule is that you write down anything and you do
not cross off anything. That happens later, the filter, the common
sense filter happens later. That particular bit of communication
would not be allowed within the code anyway so it did not happen
and it never would happen.
703 That is purely an in-house bit of fun to
raise that or was it actually a serious attempt to widen the debate
within the company?
(Mr MacLennan) We were actually looking
at developing a brand. What we often look at are the values of
the smokers to whom that brand may appeal and that was informing
that debate. In terms of the nature of the communication that
is just inaccurate and wrong and would never see the light of
day.
704 The papers we have received also make it
clear that brand image is critical to young smokers. What techniques
have you used to respond to this need to try to target specific
groups of smokers?
(Mr MacLennan) "Techniques"
is the wrong word. We do not sit around and say there are some
special techniques which one uses to appeal to young people. I
do not think brand image is more important to young people than
to middle aged people or older people, they just have a distinct
and different set of images which appeal to them. There are no
techniques which one uses to sit down and somehow appeal to them.
You just try to come up with an image which is relevant to the
target audience. In this case it was younger, which I believe
was 18 to 25-year-old smokers.
705 In that case why are young men's style magazines
such as FHM, Loaded, Maxim, etcetera, such an important channel
of communication for your company?
(Mr MacLennan) They are not particularly.
706 The papers we have received certainly seem
to say that these types of magazines are critical to your success.
Do you think that is not particularly true?
(Mr MacLennan) No, I do not think it
is particularly true. The reason one would use them is because
they target the particular market you are trying to reach more
efficiently.
Chairman
707 Could I just clarify something? You implied
that the "undermine Jowell" point I raised earlier on
was part of a brainstorming session. This is in one of the documents
which you submitted. Could you clarify that point?
(Mr MacLennan) Yes, I think I can. It
is a bit of paper which we found and we submitted it together
with everything else as we were instructed to do. My recall is
that it was around the advertising ban issue. We believed that
the advertising ban was wrong because it was based on the wrong
premise that actually advertising encourages smoking. We had a
brainstorm, a list of ideas and none of those saw the light of
day. To be honest I am not even sure it got sent to the TMA, Gallaher
or anyone. I suspect it did not.
Mr Austin
708 May I ask CDP a question on whom you are
targeting in your advertising campaign? Part of your internal
memorandum in the dossier talks about the good news on one campaign,
that you were trying to get "fuck" through and were
continuing to speak to Oasis' management to see if they would
do the ad, and Slaphead was going to pre-production to appear
in the Style magazines in January. What sort of audience was that
targeted at?
(Mr Macleod) Could you read that again?
I do not recall what that was about. I do not have the dossier.
709 It is a memorandum from Matt Harrison to
David Greaves. We will come back to that and give you a chance
to think about that. Mr MacLennan referred to the Advertising
Standards Authority and we have had evidence about advertising
practice. That seems to me to be a very clear set of regulations
and guidelines. In particular I am looking at the CAP rules which
say that advertisements should not link smoking with people who
are evidently wealthy, fashionable, sophisticated or successful
or who possess other attributes or qualities which may reasonably
be expected to command admiration or encourage emulation. Yet
in the evidence, for example from Benson & Hedges, it refers
to "classy and aspirational"; "the success of Marlboro
Lights derives from its being the "aspirational, lifestyle
brand". Do you not think those come somewhat into conflict
with the guidelines as laid down in the CAP?
(Mr MacLennan) On the surface of it they
do. What you have to realise though is that one is guidelines
for advertising and one is a product which exists and people think
that smoking and smoking some brands is particularly aspirational,
that does not necessarily come from advertising. It may come from
many different sources.
Chairman
710 Like what?
(Mr MacLennan) Like for younger people
the fact that you cannot do it until you are adult makes it something
they could aspire to. There is no way round that, it is just a
fact. Role models who smoke are probably a more powerful influencing
factor. Those two.
Mr Austin
711 Particularly for young people.
(Mr MacLennan) I would imagine more so
for young people.
712 So it would be not unreasonable for some
of us to think that those adverts are particularly targeted at
young people.
(Mr MacLennan) It would be wrong for
you to think that they were?
713 Would it be wrong for us to think that they
were targeted at young people?
(Mr MacLennan) No, it would not: young
adult smokers. Some brands are targeted at young adult smokers,
some are targeted at older adult smokers. It is true that certain
brands do have greater appeal to different sectors of the population.
714 Would they not also have a greater appeal
to younger people below the age of 16 as well?
(Mr MacLennan) All I can say is that
in every briefing we have given you, with one exception which
I am sure we shall come on to, the target audience is adult smokers
and our messages are designed to appeal to adult smokers.
715 Have you done any research into when smokers
start smoking?
(Mr MacLennan) No.
716 May I take you on to the question of health
because this inquiry is looking at the health issues related to
tobacco? The papers we have received seem to suggest that you
are anxious to avoid smokers thinking of health issues at the
same time as looking at your advertisements? For example, Marlboro
Pack Research suggests that it is negative advertising to show
the pack in the advert since "overtly selling is worse as
it prompts health concerns". May I also take up the issue
of pressure, as to where your advertisements appear? In a memo
M&C Saatchi agree to speak to CDP "... to ensure that
Sovereign does not appear opposite health section of The Mirror
in the future". Would you regard these as ethical practices
on your part?
(Mr MacLennan) I think they are entirely
ethical. To put it opposite the health page would antagonise people
such as yourselves. Why would one do that thing? As far as the
messages are concerned, there is a very large health warning on
advertisements saying that they are bad, indeed the only words
on many advertisements say that smoking kills. Then to put an
image in there which encourages people to think of other aspects
of health would be a strange way to advertise. I do not think
it is unethical in the slightest.
717 The TBWA evidence specifically suggests that
you would not wish to prompt health concerns in the marketing
of the product.
(Mr Bainsfair) That refers to some research
amongst consumers and their comments, does it not?
718 On the third page of your evidence you suggest
that it is negative advertising to show the pack as it is more
likely to prompt health concerns amongst a targeted audience.
(Mr Bainsfair) This is research carried
out by an independent research company not by the advertising
agency. It was carried out by the research company amongst consumers.
Here what they are doing is reporting back on what consumers were
saying in the groups.
719 Clearly anything which does associate the
product with a health risk is bad for sales and you want to avoid
that in your advertising.
(Mr Bainsfair) As Mr MacLennan said,
it is just common sense that you would not want to juxtapose the
two things together.
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