Antismoking promo targets youths

Antismoking promo targets youths

Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Encountering the signs and badges announcing that "we only sell
cigarettes to adults" while shopping at a Hero supermarket here,
Heidy learned for the first time that the store now refused to
sell cigarettes to children under 18-years old.

"What about to me? Will I have to show my ID to buy cigarettes
too?" the 25-year-old woman asks the store's cashier. Sure Heidy
is baby-faced, but will the cashier fall for it?

"No, that's ok ma'am I can tell that you're older than 18,"
the cashier promptly answered with a cheeky smile.

Beginning in March this year, about 90 of Hero's supermarket
outlets across the country have joined in the campaign to stop
Indonesian youths from smoking.

The motor behind this nationwide campaign, as unlikely as it
may seem, is one of the country's biggest cigarette
manufacturers, PT Philip Morris Indonesia.

"We are not in the business to sell (cigarettes) to children,"
Louis Suwarna, president of PT Philip Morris Indonesia, said in
an interview recently.

He said it was the company's firm belief that children should
not smoke, and to meet that target, it has launched numerous
campaigns around the world to discourage minors from smoking.

In Indonesia, the company has launched the anti youth-smoking
campaign in 2000, starting with placing stickers at grocery shops
and small cigarette kiosks, as well as urging store owners to
stop selling cigarettes to minors.

"To date we have placed stickers in 40,000 warung (kiosks) in
seven cities across the country," the company's communications
manager, Nina Soenoto, said.

Suwarna said that when the campaign was first launched he had
expected a high rate of rejection from shop owners. Unexpectedly,
most of those approached willingly took up the campaign.

Unfortunately there was no way of knowing how successful the
campaign was.

"At the end of the day what we can do here is build
awareness," Suwarna said, stressing the fact that Indonesia lacks
laws defining a minimum age for smokers.

The campaign with Hero was further expanded to Hero's other
subsidiaries namely 40 Star Mart minimarts and a Giant
superstore.

"Through the Hero outlets, Star Mart and Giant, many consumers
would be exposed to the efforts by our company together with the
Hero group to prevent youths from smoking," Nina said.

At Hero group, the restriction goes beyond cigarettes produced
by Philip Morris, but to other tobacco producers as well.

However, skepticisms abound, both in the country and abroad as
to the reasons behind Philip Morris's worldwide anti youth-
smoking campaigns.

Many say the campaign is just a ploy to alleviate mounting
public pressure against the strong influences of tobacco
companies with minors.

"If they really want to stop youths from smoking, they would
cease production of cigarettes or at least stop the huge
promotions," Azrul Azwar, director-general of health development
of the Ministry of Health, told The Jakarta Post.

Impressionable youths are greatly influenced by the promotions
that tobacco companies launch, and recognizing this
vulnerability, they target these youths in their advertising.

At the 11th World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Chicago
last year, it was recognized the advertising ploys launched by
major tobacco companies include sports sponsorships, and creating
promotional items such as t-shirts and hats which turn the
wearers into walking billboards.

Many times, the companies give free samples, using attractive
teens to distribute free cigarettes to their peers in areas where
young people gather.

Sponsoring live performances by famous music stars are also
frequent, such as Iwan Fals by Sampoerna A Mild, British acid
jazz band Incognito by Bentoel Star Mild and former Yess
keyboardist Rick Wakeman by Djarum.

Chairman of the Coalition for a Healthy Indonesia, Doddy
Partomihardjo, said that given teenagers' inquisitive and
creative minds they would eventually find ways to evade the new
ruling, just as they did with adult-only movies.

"It doesn't get to the core of the problem, children will only
wonder why they aren't allowed to smoke and it could even
increase their curiosity with smoking," he said.

Dody explained that a more effective way to instill anti-
smoking was to approach children at junior-high school at a
personal level like what the coalition had been doing so far.

The fact that the teenager is essential to the tobacco
industry's future is highlighted in researcher Myron E. Johnson's
1981 report to the then Vice President of Research and
Development of Philip Morris, Robert E. Seligman:

"Today's teenager is tomorrow's potential regular customer,
and the overwhelming majority of smokers first begin to smoke
while still in their teens ... The smoking patterns of teenagers
are particularly important to Philip Morris," the report said, as
mentioned in the website of the Washington-based National Center
for Tobacco-Free Kids at
tobaccofreekids.org/campaign/global/docs/advertising.pdf

Given that the continuance of the company depends so much on
the next generation, it is rather odd that the world's largest
cigarette manufacturer should launch a campaign against youth-
smoking.

"We all know how huge the tobacco companies spend on
promotion, I believe Philip Morris's investment in this campaign
doesn't even reach a thousandth of its promotional investment,"
Azrul said.

The World Bank's Watching Brief May 2002 says that 6.6 percent
of the world's total of 1.1 billion smokers are Indonesians.
Another study shows that 70 percent of the Indonesian population,
or some 141.44 million people, are smokers.

And the National Committee on Smoking Control said that one in
two students aged 15 and older smokes, while 59 percent of all
males aged 10 and older are daily smokers.