Simon Clark - Taking Liberties

I am not a fan of the marketing tactics of some e-cigarette retailers and here's why.

BBC Radio Five Live has just sent me the following press release:

Smokers working in Britain's offices waste up to five weeks per year taking cigarette breaks, according to a new survey.

The research, conducted by electronic cigarette retailer ECigaretteDirect.co.uk, found 30% of those polled spent more than an hour each day getting a nicotine hit.

This equates to more than half a working day per week or a massive 200 hours - or five typical working weeks - per year.

More than half (56%) of those quizzed said they spent between 20 to 60 minutes each day smoking, with just 13% taking less than 20 minutes for their fag breaks.

The poll also found that the actual number of cigarettes consumed during working hours varied widely, with the majority of smokers (41%) puffing away on between 10 and 20 cigs a day.

Just under one fifth of smokers (17%) consumed between 20-30 cigs a day, another fifth puffed away on between five and ten cigs, with just eight per cent working their way through more than 30 fags.

Nearly all of the workers polled (91%) admitted that they would be more productive in their roles if they were able to use smoking alternatives such as an electronic cigarette, which are exempt from the smoking ban and can therefore be used in the workplace.

A spokesman from the site says the figures make grim reading for business bosses around the country.

He said: "The cigarette break, just like the coffee break, has been part of office culture for more than a century and many employers and employees alike take them for granted. However, when you actually look at the amount of working hours wasted as staff make their way outside to smoking areas several times a day, it shows just how much they can effect productivity.

"The most prolific smokers we polled were found to waste around five hours per week on cigarette breaks, which is longer than taking every Friday afternoon off. Add that up throughout a typical employment year and this equates to five weeks or more than a full working month off, which is staggering.

"Another problem the breaks cause is the resentment which can often be harboured by non-smokers who feel they are doing more work than their smoker colleagues, which is never good for team spirit or morale."

He concluded: "There will always be people who crave nicotine and so the solution lies in finding methods which allow users to get their nicotine hit in their workplace - such as using an electronic cigarette or nicotine patches."

I shall be talking about this on Five Live Drive at 5.20pm.

Update on Thursday, March 8, 2012 at 8:27 by

Simon Clark

James from ECigarette Direct has responded to my Five Live interview in the comments. My response to James is:

A survey of 517 people sounds self-selected to me. If it wasn't self-selected can you tell us who you commissioned to conduct the survey?

Either way, the nature of the survey and the spin you put on the results are pretty indefensible, in my book. Existing smokers are going to be your core customers in the future and to stigmatise them like this is pretty short-sighted.

As I said on Five Live, the really objectionable thing about your 'survey' is that if employers take it seriously they may conclude that employing smokers is too much trouble and they will simply refuse to employ smokers at all.

We welcome e-cigarettes as a product and Forest will fight attempts to ban their use, but we will take an equally hard line on e-cigarette companies who vilify smokers and their habit in order to sell their product.

It is very clear to me, based on the response to previous posts about e-cigarettes on this blog, that your biggest market are not smokers who wish to quit but smokers who want to use an e-cigarette as an alternative to cigarettes when they are not allowed to smoke. In other words, you should be working with smokers not alienating them with cheap publicity stunts like this.