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This paper aims to inform social responsibility and social policy by describing the brand strategy of Australia’s largest tobacco manufacturer, British American Tobacco Australia (BATA), the year following the introduction of plain packaging and other regulation. Tobacco controls are a proven catalyst for reducing smoking, but manufacturers adapt swiftly seeking to minimise the impact of regulatory change.

BATA’s strategy was determined using 2012-2014 tobacco ingredient reports, recommended retail price lists and a supermarket retail audit.

The research identified over 70 BATA brand variants, offered in diverse packaging options, with new products and modified names appearing since 2012. In total 14 main brands are highly differentiated by price, with 45 per cent difference between the cheapest and the most expensive. Volume discounting occurs across packaging ranges, with twin packs offering best value and prices up to 10 per cent lower than those of single packs.

The research originality stems from the triangulation of three different data resources to establish brand strategy following increased regulation. The study confirms ongoing market segmentation using highly differentiated ranges, and it reveals the unintended consequences of corporate responses to regulation. Evolving variant names communicate product information and imagery previously imparted by pack design. Pricing strategies enable smokers to offset substantial excise increases through brand switching and volume buying. The research, therefore, reveals the potential for regulating these as yet unrestricted elements to enhance the impact of plain packaging and other tobacco controls, thereby further reducing the social impact of smoking.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

One of the main challenges facing organizations today is ensuring that operations are conducted in a socially responsible manner. Pressure is even greater on multinational corporations that by definition have the scope to do most harm. It is thus expected that businesses take necessary measures to ensure that any negative impact of their activities on society or the environment is minimized. The public is particularly concerned about firms involved in the manufacture of tobacco, alcohol and processed foods. Consumption of such products is strongly linked with grave medical conditions and premature death. Plenty evidence corroborates these claims. Companies operating in these sectors have not been slow to respond. Many are prominent supporters of different worthy causes and substantiate their backing with sizeable donations.

The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

This article aims to explore the public evaluation of the ethics of marketing tobacco in Indonesia through the theoretical lens of normative ethics.

The present study adopted a symbiotic ethical approach which combined normative and positive ethical approaches. The data was collected in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, from six focus groups and thirty photo elicitation interviews with a total of 71 participants.

The thematic analysis has identified six main themes, economic contribution of the tobacco industry, harmful nature of tobacco products, tobacco marketing targeting vulnerable groups, covering the danger of smoking, intention and integrity of tobacco marketers and infringement of law and social norms. Adopting the theoretical lens of utilitarianism, deontology, contractarianism and virtue ethics, the analysis illustrates that most participants believed that tobacco marketing practices in Indonesia are unethical.

The findings of the study were disseminated in a public engagement event to stakeholders in Yogyakarta. The findings influenced the development of No Smoking Area monitoring instrument and the introduction of “Free from Tobacco Advertisement in No Smoking Area” policy in Sleman Regency, Yogyakarta.

Indonesia, with its lenient regulatory environment, provides a unique setting for investigating public evaluation of the ethics of tobacco marketing. This is one of the first studies that investigates public evaluation of tobacco marketing ethics in Indonesia through the theoretical lens of utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics and contractarianism.

Taking the deadliest mine accident in Turkey’s history as a case of corporate social irresponsibility (CSI), this study aims to examine the adequacy of Campbell’s (2007) model to explain firms’ CSI behaviour.

The authors applied a case study research method and collected secondary data in both English and Turkish from multiple sources between 2010 and 2017.

The authors found seven of the eight propositions in Campbell’s framework applicable. The only condition that did not fit the authors’ case was financial pressure. The authors concluded that top management’s greed and lack of conscience significantly contributed to their gross negligence of safety measures and employee welfare. Their exploitative human resource practices, supported by low employee voice culture, added to the vulnerability of the mining workers.

The authors depended on secondary data in developing and analysing the case. The authors had no primary data collected directly from the participants involved in the accident. Moreover, relying on a single case to challenge an established framework may not achieve the necessary rigour, although an in-depth case study is likely to produce a good story.

To prevent mining accidents from happening, Turkey needs to strengthen all three types of institutions (legal and regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive) related to mining safety. As coal mining is harmful to the environment and public health, regulators and policymakers need to consider their dependence on coal mining as a source of energy and actively seek to adopt other clean energy alternatives.

This study contributes to the under-researched field of CSI by applying a dual economic and institutional perspective and refining it with the authors’ data.

Faced with ever-increasing advertising restrictions, sponsorship of sports has been an important promotional avenue for tobacco companies in North America and around the world. This paper examines the corporate sponsorship objectives and strategies of tobacco companies, based primarily on historical documents from the British-American Tobacco Co., which has operations in over 80 countries. The documents are part of the Guildford Depository located in Guildford, England. It contains over six million pages of corporate documents for the British-American Tobacco Company (BAT) from a 40-year span (early 1950s to mid 1990s). Tobacco company sponsorship practices include developing sponsorship evaluation guidelines, extensive prepromotion and post-promotion of sponsored events, making full use of the event site for sponsorship identification, ensuring that sponsored events are televised, and using an extensive array of public relations practices to ensure news coverage of a sponsored event. Other sponsors could benefit from emulating the sponsorship practices of tobacco companies.

The purpose of this paper is to assess, by providing a case study of flagship brand, Rothmans, why Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc. (RBH), Canada's second largest tobacco firm, has historically lost ground to industry leader, Imperial Tobacco Canada Limited (ITL).

The paper utilizes data from internal corporate documents, made public from litigation, as well as trade press and promotional materials accessed from advertising archives. More specifically, the tobacco industry documents reviewed were made public from two Canadian trials: the 1989 Canadian trial to decide the constitutionality of the Tobacco Products Control Act; and the 2002 Quebec Superior Court trial in which Canada's three major tobacco firms challenged the constitutionality of the Tobacco Act.

The declining market share of Rothmans is largely explained by the brand's inability to appeal to the highly valued youth or “health concerned” segments. RBH failed to link the cigarette brand consistently with segment‐appropriate imagery during a time when legislation prompted a shift in promotional spending by the Canadian tobacco industry towards sponsorship communications. Unlike ITL, RBH failed to capitalize on the potential of sponsorship to contemporize the Rothmans brand and make it relevant to younger smokers. Moreover, RBH was slow to introduce a so‐called “light” line extension, which would appeal to existing smokers with health concerns.

This study should particularly interest researchers and practitioners interested in marketing and public policy, in which insight is provided about unique challenges to marketing in Canada on the basis of government regulation.

Tobacco sponsorship of sports has increasingly been cast as a public issue on the grounds that it supports pediatric smoking by circumventing advertising restrictions and communicating positive brand information to children(28,31,32). Research on tobacco sponsorship effects on children is as yet inconclusive, but growing evidence suggests that sponsorship is an effective medium for building cigarette brand awareness and image among under‐aged youth. Research in this area has been inconclusive in part because it lacks a unified framework in which the various contributions of sponsorship to brand knowledge and use can be analysed holistically. This paper proposes that the brand equity concept(1,2,18) provides such a framework. The paper reviews previous research on tobacco sponsorship and children, and presents findings from a study that assessed the relative contribution of sponsorship to brand awareness among fourteen year‐olds (n=366) in Dunedin, New Zealand. The value of sponsorship‐derived cigarette brand knowledge among youth is expressed in terms of Keller's(18) concept of customer‐based brand equity. The study found that children's awareness of tobacco brands and tobacco sponsorships varied according to their smoking experience, sports interests and gender. Cigarette brands with the strongest event associations were those that sponsored events that had a high appeal for the youth in the study. The brands with the highest unaided recall levels were those that were prominently shown in point of purchase displays in stores frequented by the youth, and included those with the highest sponsorship profiles. The research demonstrates that tobacco companies can achieve significant brand recall among children through sport sponsorship, as well as interest‐based (lifestyle) segmentation and targeting benefits, and brand positioning (personality) benefits. The findings have implications for public policy and industry practice. In policy terms, if the goal of tobacco advertising prohibitions is to denormalise smoking by restricting the positive promotional imagery of cigarettes, then sport sponsorship and point of purchase displays need to be incorporated into advertising legislation. In terms of industry practice, the fact that tobacco sponsorship reaches and influences under‐aged youth stands to be a matter of concern for any entity that does not want this social burden. It is recommended that corporations considering involvement in a tobacco‐sponsored event should evaluate the reach of the event and the potential effects of its promotions on youth. Where a youth‐interest connection has been demonstrated for the event, corporations should weigh the social risks and costs of the sponsorship. For non‐tobacco related entities these costs include the potential negative impacts of tobacco‐linked event cross‐promotions on their own brands and corporate image.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of tobacco differentiation attributes (i.e. nicotine and tar content, length, flavor and thickness) in market performance and loyalty levels of brands.

The study adopts a stochastic approach to measure brand loyalty at the attribute level using the Dirichlet model as a benchmark tool. Data based on the Juster Probability Scale were collected from a sample of n=155 young smokers in Iceland.

Product differentiation strategies operate differently. Light nicotine and tar content encourages smokers to switch across brands and within family brands, resulting on improved market performance and loyalty levels. Length and thickness‐related differentiation are slightly better than non‐differentiation in inducing loyalty, but worse in improving performance.

Two types of categorization prevail in the category: first, a family brand‐based, mainly relevant for large brands; and second, an attribute‐driven, apparent for small family brands. Two types of switching behaviors can also be considered: first within family brands, switching among product attributes for the larger brands; and second within product attributes, switching among family brands for smaller brands.

These findings have profound implications for the development of anti‐smoking policy in terms of the exact functioning of product differentiation as part of the tobacco industry's strategy. Public health policy makers can benefit in their fight against nicotine consumption by taking public policy counter‐measures (e.g. completely banning or regulating production of “light” nicotine and tar content brands) that can limit the anticipated success of differentiation strategies of the tobacco industry.

Not much research has been done on loyalty within the tobacco category, possibly due to the ethical considerations accompanying managerial suggestions about smoking. The contribution of the present work lies in the provisions of evidence‐based insights to help brand managers and other stakeholders (e.g. public health policy makers) to take informed decisions.

Describes the history of the tobacco industry and its emergence as an extremely effective marketer and non-market strategist. After years of success, both publicly and politically, the leaders of the tobacco industry are faced with mounting political pressure and the financial threat of litigation from class-action lawsuits. The leaders face an industry-wide strategic decision of whether to acquiesce to government demands in exchange for immunity, focus on judicial success, or develop a new course of action.

To evaluate the formulation and implementation of non-market strategies in the context of regulatory, legislative, and legal institutions. To understand how various aspects of the non-market environment interact and how these environments not only change over time, but change market competition within an industry. Further, to formulate and decide between firm-specific and industry-wide strategies. Finally, to appreciate and reflect upon the potential conflict between non-market strategies and ethical concerns.