Research article
Cigarette Promotional Offers: Who Takes Advantage?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2005.11.001Get rights and content

Background

Promotional offers on cigarettes (e.g., dollar-off, multipack discounts) composed the largest share of tobacco industry marketing expenditures, totaling $8.9 billion, or 72% of the total budget in 2002. Internal industry documents indicate that young adults, potential quitters, and other price-sensitive groups are the targets of these marketing tactics. How effective they are in actually reaching these groups in the general population of smokers has not yet been investigated.

Methods

Data were from 4618 current smokers responding to the large, random-digit-dialed population-based 2002 California Tobacco Survey. The characteristics were identified of smokers who reported that they used these offers “every time I see one.”

Results

Thirty-five percent of smokers used promotional offers every time they saw one. Multivariate analyses identified young adults, women, African Americans, those with higher daily cigarette consumption, and those worried about cigarette costs as more likely to use promotional offers at every opportunity. Smokers most committed to quitting were no more likely to use promotional offers than those with no intention to quit. Cigarette brand was highly correlated with age and race/ethnicity, and therefore was not included in the multivariate analysis. Those who smoked menthol cigarettes and Camels, more often young adults and African Americans, were much more likely than those of other brands to use promotional offers.

Conclusions

With the exception of smokers intending to quit, cigarette promotional offers are effectively reaching most industry-targeted groups. Importantly, young adults, who have the greatest long-term customer potential, are responding.

Introduction

In contrast to traditional advertising, tobacco industry promotional marketing expenditures for cigarettes has increased substantially since the mid-1980s.1, 2, 3, 4 In 2002, promotional offers on cigarettes (e.g., dollar-off, multipack discounts) composed the largest share of total ($12.5 billion) marketing expenditures at 72% or $8.9 billion.4 These practices may be a strategy by the tobacco industry to subsidize the price of cigarettes for various price-sensitive market segments4, 5 who otherwise might cut their consumption or even quit. The industry’s interest in discouraging quitting and recapturing quitters is well documented in its internal records. In fact, Ling and Glantz6 found that Phillip Morris, Brown & Williamson, and RJ Reynolds all conducted studies that focused on tracking and characterizing quitters and on identifying strategies that might allay concerns about price, nicotine addiction, and the social acceptability of smoking. Previous research indicates that the more price-sensitive groups include heavier smokers, low-income smokers, women, and young adults,7, 8, 9, 10 but there are no data on the price sensitivity of smokers who are planning to quit soon.

Tobacco companies had to develop new marketing approaches to maintain their competitive edge and to counter the decline in sales because of increasing cigarette prices.1 Although various state and federal tax increases continued through the early 1990s, it was not until the late 1990s that a succession of larger tax increases occurred.9 Following the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) between 46 state attorneys general and five major tobacco companies to resolve state lawsuits against the industry,11 cigarette prices increased nationwide by approximately $0.70 per pack. California implemented an additional $0.50 per pack excise tax in January 1999, and small price increases since then have driven up the average price of a pack of cigarettes in that state by 75%, from $2.33 in 1997 to $4.08 in 2002 (inflation adjusted).12

Much of what is known about cigarette promotional marketing strategies has been based on internal tobacco industry documents. However, these data may not reflect actual smoking-related behaviors in the general population. Besides examining groups previously identified as price sensitive, and thus, perhaps more likely to take advantage of promotional offers, this study also investigated whether those contemplating quitting may report using these offers more often. Such smokers may find it difficult to pass up what they perceive as a bargain, and as a result, procrastinate about quitting. It is also possible that smokers of particular brands might report using such offers more often, because these brands are more likely to feature the offers. In this analysis, data from the large, population-based 2002 California Tobacco Survey was used to identify which smokers appear most likely to take advantage of promotional offers on cigarettes.

Section snippets

Data Source

This study employed data from the 2002 California Tobacco Survey (CTS), a large population-based random-digit-dialed telephone survey designed to monitor changes in tobacco use and attitudes in California.13 The methods for the 2002 CTS, conducted between September 2002 and January 2003, are described in detail elsewhere.14 In brief, samples of telephone exchanges are drawn within each of 18 regions in California. In each survey, an adult (aged ≥18 years) in each responding household (46% of

Frequency of Seeing and Taking Advantage of Promotional Offers

Over one third (35.0%±1.6% [±95% confidence interval]) of smokers said they used promotional offers every time they saw one, but a majority (54.9%±1.8%) reported rarely seeing them (Table 1). Taking advantage of promotional offers was related to how frequently they were seen (Table 2). Around one half of smokers who saw such offers at least one quarter of the time that they bought cigarettes said that they used them every time they saw them compared to only about one quarter of those who rarely

Discussion

Our results provide strong evidence that tobacco industry promotional offers are particularly appealing to certain market segments, including young adults, women, African Americans, those with higher daily consumption levels, and those worried about cigarette cost. Menthol (Newport/Kool) and Camel smokers, in particular, were highly likely to say they took advantage of promotional offers every time they saw one. Although tobacco industry documents have long suggested that promotional offers

Conclusions

With the exception of smokers intending to quit soon, our results strongly suggest that the tobacco industry is successfully reaching the intended price-sensitive groups with its promotional offers. Such a strategy may be particularly effective with young adults and African Americans who tend to smoke the brands associated with increased promotional-offer use. To cigarette manufacturers, promoting brand loyalty in younger casual smokers and encouraging them to become fully addicted so they will

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