The Development of Philip Morris's Position on Environmental Tobacco Smoke for its Website

The Development of Philip Morris's Position on Environmental Tobacco Smoke for its Website, by Jacqui Drope, 2004, for the World Health Organization

Summary of published article:

In response to increasingly successful tobacco control activism, in 1999 PM created “Philip Morris in the 21st Century— PM 21,” a public relations campaign aimed at changing its corporate image. PM was aware that its image was linked to the outcome of litigation, to investor confidence, and thus to stock prices. PM decided that making apologies for the company's past behavior was not the best solution. Instead, it decided to highlight what a good company it was now, and how much it contributed to the community through philanthropic activities such as addressing hunger and disaster relief, youth smoking prevention, and domestic violence prevention. An essential part of the company’s transformation was the development of a new website that would explain the “Company’s position on the subjects of causation, addiction, and Environmental Tobacco Smoke ...” (secondhand smoke) PM created a “Strategic Issues Task Force” in May of 1999, which recommended using the web as a medium to achieve Philip Morris USA’s public image transformation goal. It was thought that most users would be Americans but that the site should be available internationally too as it would have international ramifications. The company stated its goal in this way: “communicate tobacco issues in a way that is consistent and ‘global’.” The website went ‘global’ quickly and, by 2000, country specific websites in local languages were being supplied by Philip Morris International [henceforth PMI]. William H. Webb, Chief Operating Officer of the Philip Morris Companies realized that PM USA and PMI now existed in a “global regulatory environment,” which meant countries were modeling the legislation and regulations of other countries and the behaviour of others was being closely observed. Webb recognized the need for consistency and described possible ramifications of inconsistency in this way: “Perceived inconsistencies are likely to be identified and could be used to discredit important work we have begun.” The communication role of the websites was identified as one of five areas to be addressed. This included coordinating the views of PMI and PM USA.

This paper focuses on the development of Philip Morris’s position on Environmental Tobacco Smoke [ETS] for its websites. Internal documents from 1999 to 2004 were searched. Searches were conducted from October to December, 2003. In particular, the paper focuses on drafts of the Web site prepared by Philip Morris from June 1999 to October 1999, the period in which the majority of work on its position was done. The paper addresses how Philip Morris set out to develop the content and format of its websites to communicate with opinion leaders and the general public in a way that would enhance the company’s image.