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moves inside to the checkout
Tougher rules to block sales to kids
By Kathy Prentice
Nearly a year after tobacco companies agreed to pull their ads off billboards, the war over cigarette advertising has moved indoors to points of purchase-- store displays, cigarette machines and window posters.
It promises to be an ugly war. It will also be largely a local one.
Unlike the billboard battles which took place in a national arena, the new point-of-purchase restrictions are largely being debated in city and village councils.
And here the tobacco companies are at a unique disadvantage. Used to wielding influence in the halls of Congress, where all the players know each other and compromise is always king, they must now venture out into the town halls of America to face powerful anti-smoking lobbies for whom compromise is tantamount to capitulation.
Proponents have a powerful argument on their side: the interest of children. They argue that the ads are aimed at children and should therefore be restricted. It's an argument against which traditional tobacco claims of First Amendment protection pale.
Examples of the new ordinances:
- Cigarettes products must now be displayed behind a counter where customers don’t have direct access in stores in Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Utah, Minnesota, Texas and Vermont. Similar proposals failed in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Florida, Delaware, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Washington.
- Storefront tobacco ads are banned in a 1,000 foot band around schools in Albany, Tacoma and Chicago, and a number of communities are considering measures to ban tobacco messages in and around cash registers.
-In some communities, such as Hackensack, N.J., cigarette machines are being banned from restaurants and even bars.
"Why local? They’re easier to pass," says University of Texas advertising department chair Jeff Richards. "A lot of times the [local] government isn’t even considering free speech issues."
While tobacco companies and advertisers may feel blind-sided by the new regulations, anti-tobacco groups are gathering steam.
"The best way to approach [regulation] is locality by locality," says Robert Kline of the Boston-based Tobacco Control Resource Center, a leader in the campaign for tougher display laws. "The government closest to the people is best to decide community standards."
Industry officials predict that a third of the states could pass point-of-purchase restrictions against tobacco advertising by the end of next year.
And that's advertising the tobacco companies spend billions on. The tobacco industry spent over $5 billion on advertising and promotion in 1996, the most recent year for which numbers are available. Over $2 billion was for promotional allowances to retailers, including slotting fees to ensure prime display space. Another $250 million was spent for other point-of-purchase advertising, totaling nearly half of the entire budget.
Displays -- racks for product and ads usually situated at counters and aisle caps -- are at the core of most local restrictions on tobacco ads.
"Right now the majority of state and local restrictions regulate these types of displays," says Bob Maples, president of the Washington-based Smokeless Tobacco Council, which is fighting the new measures. These restrictions force store owners to move cigarettes off the retail floor and behind counters, where customers must ask for them.
Restricted counter access is also a rising national concern. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in December over whether the Food and Drug Administration should oversee tobacco sales. The FDA favors moving tobacco products behind the counter.
In many localities the displays used to sell cigarettes are the same as those used to display snack foods like Keebler cookies and Frito-Lay chips.
Both sides agree that the displays are a great marketing tool, but the anti-tobacco groups argue that they are intended by the tobacco companies to lure children into smoking by building an association between treats and cigarettes.
Reformers like Kline argue that the displays are intended to encourage kids to steal tobacco products.
"The tobacco industry pays a lot of money for the opportunity to have their products at the end of aisles, in bins like potato chips or candy bars. They pay to have them put in a spot close to the door and out of the eye line of the clerk. They may as well have a sign over the display rack saying, ‘Hey kids, shoplift here.’"
The tobacco industry argues that laws are already in place to restrict anyone under 18 from purchasing cigarettes, and that’s it up to local municipalities to enforce them.
Advertising campaigns shifted to point of purchase as the tobacco companies began toning down billboard ads several years ago, even prior to last year’s settlement. Local campaigns to restrict the point-of-purchase ads date back to the same time. Maples points out that 1997 was also the year that Canada moved cigarettes behind the counter, and he believes bordering states were influenced to pass similar laws.
The tobacco agreement allows companies to display signs up to 14 square feet on stores that sell their products. Some local governments are telling retailers that the signs must face into the store, and not into the street where children can see them.
In response, many grocery stores that sell tobacco have stopped advertising.
"Even though ads are still legal in stores, there are chains that opt out for moral reasons," says Lili Mahlab of Frontline Advertising, which specializes in point-of-purchase campaigns. "Ten years ago all of the chains allowed tobacco [advertising], but today only 60 percent of our stores do."
Maples believes that the American Lung Association backs many grassroots movements to restrict tobacco advertising. The Coalition to Protect Advertising Displays, made up of the Smokeless Tobacco Council and the Point of Purchase Advertising Institute, support the opposition to the tougher ordinances.
Meanwhile, tobacco companies are fighting each other over displays and special incentive programs for prime space. Philip Morris is being sued by R.J. Reynolds, Lorilland and Brown & Williamson over their "Retail Leaders" marketing plan, which could boost Philip Morris’s market share from 54 percent to as high as 70 percent.
The issue is how much space each tobacco company should have on backboard displays. Payment to retailers is in dollars off cartons of cigarettes. Arguments in the case won’t be heard until next year.
If tobacco is squeezed off the retail floor, where will their advertising dollars go?
Spending for direct mail, internet and magazine ads, and coupon programs is already up, and could continue to rise.
And if tobacco can be banned, what’s next? Maples says, "If we do this to tobacco, can we do it to beer? And then it’s only a small leap to over-the-counter drugs like antihistamines, even caffeinated products.
-Kathy Prentice
covers outdoor and radio for Media Life.