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27 August 2010
Tobacco companies may be exploiting web 2.0 media on sites such as YouTube to promote their products to young people. A recent study, published in the Tobacco Control journal in late August, has found that tobacco companies could well be using the internet to get around marketing restrictions, despite always vehemently denying doing so. Several of the companies even signed up to a voluntary agreement to restrict direct advertising on websites by the end of 2002. The authors of the new research looked at content on YouTube specifically, as it has the largest share of the online video market, and searched through the first 20 pages of video clips containing any reference to five tobacco brands. These were Marlboro and L&M, marketed by Philip Morris; Benson and Hedges, marketed by both British American Tobacco and Gallagher; and Winston and Mild Seven, marketed by Japan Tobacco and Reynolds. The authors analysed 163 relevant clips in all, over 20 of which appeared to be “very professionally made”. The clips included the 40 most viewed videos for Marlboro, Winston cigarettes, and Benson and Hedges; 24 English language videos for Mild Seven; and 19 for L&M cigarettes. Those videos associated with Marlboro were the most heavily viewed, totting up an average of almost 104,000 views each, with one attracting 2 million views alone. Almost three quarters of the content found (71%) was classified as “pro-tobacco,” with less than 4% classified as “anti-tobacco.” Most (70%) of the sample clips contained brand images of people smoking branded tobacco products, and most video clips for every brand studied, except Marlboro, contained brand content or the brand name in the title. Out of 40 Marlboro videos, 39 had the name Marlboro in the title. Thirty three appeared to be related to the brand— for example, containing images of a man on a horse or the Marlboro advertisement theme, say the authors. Archive material, celebrities, movies, sports, and music were the most common content themes in the 163 clips, which are all likely to appeal to young people, according to the researchers. Almost one in three (30%) of the Marlboro video clips studied featured music, and one in four (25%) included celebrities or movies. Around half of Mild Seven (54%) and Benson and Hedges (45%) had a sports theme. The authors commented, “The arguments used to limit tobacco imagery in film and TV appear to apply to internet videos.” They concluded, “Policy development by governments and/or the [World Health Organization] is needed to encourage or require website operators to add pro-tobacco imagery or brand content to the material they will remove, so as to reduce youth exposure to such material.”