‘The media didn’t want our ads’: Philip Morris comms boss
Philip Morris International had a problematic culture of ‘no comment’ and didn’t put names on its press releases, the tobacco company’s senior vice president of communications, Marian Salzman, has told an audience at Mumbrella CommsCon.
As a result of being a faceless brand – and people’s increasingly negative attitude towards tobacco – she said she’s had to spend time with companies persuading them to take the company’s advertising dollar.
Addressing Australia’s frostiness towards cigarettes, Salzman told the CommsCon crowd: “I’ve never stood up in front of an audience in a country where I knew I represented something that’s kind of hated”.
Your company is built on death. Your wage is paid by death. If you were here to “stop people using combustible tobacco” you wouldn’t be selling cigarettes, period.
What a joke.
My thoughts exactly
……but oh so good with that first beer on a Friday arvo.
Agree entirely, and disappointed in Mumbrella for having them speak.
We’re very lucky in Australia that we have the strict anti-smoking and public health laws that we do. But go to any emerging economy and you will see an environment cluttered with cigarette advertising, with products promoted and sold to children as well as adults. In those markets, the battle against cancer is being fought by companies like Phillip Morris, and cancer is winning. It’s all very well and good for Ms Salzman to come to Australia and peddle her “We don’t want people to start smoking” line but that is very clearly not the case in countries where poor, vulnerable people are taken advantage of by the pro-cancer lobby. This is capitalism at it’s most cynical, most corrupt and most hypocritical.
Mumbrella can get in the bin for having a speaker like this.
What can anyone learn from a marketer whose job it is to lie?
80% of your revenue is from cigarettes but 80% of your marketing is on IQOS. Well, doh! That’s because governments all over the world except in basket-case nations mostly with high corruption indices, have long banned tobacco advertising.
“It’s really easy for you to say to me: ‘Why don’t you stop selling cigarettes?’ If we stopped selling cigarettes this morning, our competitors will sell cigarettes and tobacco product to everyone who wants to buy it.” That’s rather like someone buying stolen goods or pirating music saying “If I don’t do it, plenty of other people will”. Rather neat way of avoiding the ethical issues? See https://simonchapman6.com/2019/02/12/if-we-stopped-selling-cigarettes-tomorrow-someone-else-would-take-our-place/
Rachel, Australia’s laws on smoking are a joke. Who’s shouldering the burden of all that tax? Those that can least afford it.
Piling in on big tobacco is easy; for governments, marketers, anyone. Their past sins are well documented. But where is all the passion and taxes for the biggest lobbyists and ad spenders, Coles, Woolies, Coke, Yum, McDonald’s, Mars, Airlines, Auto manufacturers, Gambling, were these industries at the event? Have they got their own issues? Are we holding them to the same level of account. Do we all gladly take their money?
Good on Mumbrella for inviting her. I think a lot of the delegates would have a lot to learn from her as their own industries will face a lot of the same issues in the future.
Haven’t we already seen this movie?
@trying to be an ex smoker
We would like you to hold onto that addictive feeling of smoothness! The robust flavour, the suaveness, etc
What facile comments follow an article that should elicit something more considered.
A pity.
Shame on Mumbrella for having PMI speak.
Mumbrella will no doubt use the argument that they’re a non-partisan media outlet and all brands have a voice in our industry landscape. But Mumbrella knows this is as much a bullshit excuse as PMI’s good-guy rhetoric.
“Most paid media didn’t really want our ads when I got here,” she said.
Assuming she is talking about Australian, it is illegal to advertise tobacco, or even to show people smoking. So I’m wondering, who was taking their money and showing the adv.
Ah yes the old “good people on both sides” argument. How very 2019.
Really? What should we discuss?
The pros and cons of promoting a business that kills people?
How to claim that you are trying to stop people smoking while selling them cigarettes?
What about how to make out you are the good guy because if you weren’t selling it to them, someone else will? I mean, imagine if it was the bad guys selling cigarettes!
As ever, thank you to all for the comments above and participating in the debate, no matter whether you agreed with PMI being invited to speak or not. As some have already noted, yes, Mumbrella will always broach the tough topics that are relevant to the industries we cover and push conversations into the spotlight that need to be there.
In this case, PMI was relevant for a number of reasons specifically for CommsCon 2019. The main were Salzman’s appointment last year from such a high profile PR agency role, PMI’s push to engage with agencies recently, particularly at Cannes, and the refresh of communications about how it promotes the business.
We are here to put these topics in the spotlight for debate, which we did yesterday. The side you choose to sit on is completely up to you which is why we will embrace the positive and negative feedback equally.
We were encouraged to see that the large audience yesterday got heavily involved in the session, asked tough but fair questions and hopefully walked away with the answers they wanted and deserved.
Damian Francis
Head of Paid Content
Mumbrella
I wasn’t at the conference but I welcome the discussion this appearance has generated. I hope it hastens the pace to the gambling industry being constrained by exactly the same regulation as tobacco, in advertising their socially toxic messages. I cringe at ever one of the TVCs I see for gambling: not just for the crap creative but for the obvious targeting to the poor addictive personalities who decline, so that the profits of these parasitic corporations may rise.
Many self righteous comments here… And yet how many Australian ad agencies would turn down work from gambling companies, which do just as much damage to people’s lives? Many big holding groups proudly roll out betting industry logos on their creds slides without a second thought.
If you are upset that Mumbrella have PM a platform:
According to science, consuming cold beverages with hot food does the following:
1. Restricts Digestion
2. Inhibits Breakdown of Fats
3. Decreases Heart Rate
Why does the press offer a platform to the manufacturer, distributor, retailer, and seller of soft drinks, chilled water, wine, and alcohol?
–
If you are upset that Mumbrella invites contrarian people to events:
So the solution is to censor everyone you disagree with, lock yourself in an echo chamber of people with similar ideas, expose yourself to nothing that challenges your POV, and then wonder why we were so out of touch as to how Trump/Brexit happened?
So you leapt to “never challenge yourself” from people rightly condemning the predatory tobacco industry? Big leap.
Well that’s a new one. I’ve never heard cigarettes compared with water before.
Wake me up when bottled water kills millions of people each year. Including my father in law, who is slowly dying after 50 years of smoking.