Plain packaging could have unintended consequences, says branding expert
Friday, July 25, 2014 at 12:46 There was an interesting discussion about plain packaging on RTE Radio 1 yesterday.
It featured Kathleen O'Meara of the Irish Cancer Society; Sandy Dunlop, an Irish-based "branding expert"; and Forest's John Mallon.
John did a great job but he and O'Meara said pretty much what you would expect them to say, so it was Dunlop's contribution that particularly caught my ear.
He began by agreeing with Ireland's former health minister James Reilly who was quoted saying the cigarette box is the "last billboard" for cigarette companies.
After a brief debate about the importance of Marlboro Man, Dunlop suddenly changed tack and warned of the negative consequences of plain packaging. It's worth quoting in full:
Another issue is if you go too hard on an area you could make the category cool because of its prohibition. An example would be drinking in the States when they had Prohibition.
You gotta ask why do people do things. One of the reasons people smoke is because it's enjoyable to them. For many people it's community and friendship and if you push and push and push you might introduce the category as being exciting and adventurous.
So you can do something for one reason and have an unintended consequence that you didn't predict. Drinking in the States in the time of Prohibition would not only have been enjoyable, it could have been exciting and adventurous which is why people did these things.
Asked by the steadfastly impartial stand-in presenter Keelin Shanley, "Is there any evidence that getting rid of the branding will work?", Dunlop replied:
I don't really know what the evidence is. What I would do is why not use the techniques and marketing and some of the amazing insights from neuroscience and behavioural economics to make smoking uncool and make other behaviours cool by focussing on health?
I think that in Ireland it's actually happened around drink driving where the younger generation [accept] it is not cool to drink and drive.
I think there's other more positive ways. If you push and push and push against something you start having unintended negative consequences that you didn't predict and it may be that if all this does is make smuggling easier you're having a negative effect that you didn't intend, so I would put the energy into how branding works, and understanding that, to make other activities cool, make health cool, and the consequences of that could be smoking becomes less and less cool.
So there we have it – a "branding expert" spells out one of the negative consequences of plain packaging and suggests a better policy might be to "make health cool".
I'm not sure I would give the state that responsibility but the principle – accentuate the positive – makes sense.
Click here for the full discussion.
Reader Comments (3)
John D. Rockefeller Jr the wealthy industrialist, was a tee totaller who agreed with American Prohibition of alcohol. It lasted from 1919 to 1933 and was a complete disaster. Drinking increased and organised crime blossomed, in 1932 he wrote a letter confirming the abject failure.
“When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.”
Letter on Prohibition – see Daniel Okrent, Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center, New York: Viking Press, 2003. (pp.246/7).
“Cool” is like “love” – it’s one of the few things which can’t be forced by legislation or regulation for people to feel. Just ask the Christian Church – they’ve been trying to sell “love” to people for the last two thousand years, and yet we’re still fighting and blowing each other to smithereens - sometimes we’re even using the “love-promoting” Church to justify it!
Ditto “cool.” Anything which smacks of “promoting” what is or isn’t “cool” is destined to be treated with utter disdain by anyone over the age of 10. The hard fact, after all, is that it’s just not possible for anyone to force onto others what is or isn’t deemed “cool” when – as manifestly “uncool” people themselves – they clearly have no idea what it actually is!
“Cool” is naturally-occurring generational thing. What’s cool for one generation will be dead uncool for the next, and so on ad infinitum. I mean (truthfully, now), just think about it - if, as a teenager, your mum and dad had tried to tell you how to be “cool,” what would have been your instant reaction …. ?
Why would anyone ever believe that a product or behaviour that is attractive to the user will become unattractive just because someone says so? I think that those who successfully quit smoking believe that there's more gain from not smoking than by smoking. Those who reluctantly try to quit because they think they should (other people have told them that) fail because they believe they're losing more than they're gaining. If the Other People resort to bullying the user then heels tend to be dug in. TC is arrogant and shows a woeful lack of understanding of what makes people tick - but then I don't think they care: they're on a mission, one that, happily, also pays them a rather nice income which isn't endangered because they get away with burying their failures in dodgy stats, spin or downright lies. The one thing they've excelled at is in winning the 'hearts and minds' of the stupid, uncritical, intolerant, prejudiced and egocentric.