A clear case against tobacco legislation

15 April 2013



Paul Jenkins, managing director of packaging innovation consultancy The PackHub, warns of the potential implications proposed plain tobacco packaging would have for brand owners


The recent media coverage that the UK Government plans to press on with tobacco plain packaging legislation was the non-news story of that week. David Cameron was quoted a few days later to clarify that a decision had yet to be made and his government were keeping their options open. The UK media ran with the story anyway, tobacco share prices fell dramatically and we were left wondering what the implications of plain tobacco packaging could be for brand owners.

The issues are about the rights of businesses to communicate brand values, to reinforce differentiation and help consumers make informed decisions about competing products. The longer-term implications of plain packaging fall beyond tobacco and into other categories.

Whether it is eventually implemented or not, the fact that this proposal is on the UK Government's agenda is disappointing. The draconian measures imposed in the Australian tobacco market last December have created a lot of noise globally. They were the first market in the world to introduce plain packaging. New Zealand have announced that they plan to follow their antipodean cousins, and other countries are also rumoured to be in line to introduce potentially neutral, flat, generic packaging.

Effectively, the Aussies have set a template for what needs to be done that can be 'cut and pasted' for other markets to employ.

The fact that the total banning of branding might be coming to a consumer goods product in the UK no longer shocks. What does, though, is the relative silence of the marketing and branding community to these drastic packaging measures. The tobacco industry is putting up a fight, but where is the united voice of the plentiful marketing personnel to question the validity and the consequences of these measures to their industry? More significantly, how might these measures one day affect other consumer goods sectors?

This isn't really an argument about whether you are anti or pro tobacco, but about the freedom to communicate branding and intellectual property on a legal product. Worryingly, authorities don't seem to need much evidence of potential changes to consumer behaviour to implement change. Australian tobacco packaging legislation was implemented with little compelling evidence that it would affect smoking rates, but they did it anyway. I hope this doesn't set a precedent for other markets keenly looking to introduce punitive marketing restrictions in tobacco and beyond.

These measures could feasibly set a standard for change in other challenged categories. Tobacco restrictions might be on the horizon now, but soft drinks, fast food, confectionery and alcohol are a few of the more controversial categories inevitably on many governments' long term radar. I'm not necessarily suggesting that plain packaging is likely to be introduced anytime soon in these other categories, but it does lower the bar considerably in terms of what consumers in other sectors might see as acceptable restrictions imposed on them and their products.

Is it far-fetched to imagine punitive marketing restrictions in other consumer categories? Fifteen years ago, few tobacco marketers would have ever envisaged a situation where they had no branding, huge picture health warnings, display bans and just about every other promotional activity on their 1998 marketing plan taken away. It makes you think.

I'm a passionate fan of brands and the worst thing for me about a move to plain packaging is that it really goes against everything a good brand manager sets out to achieve. Without the ability to communicate what you stand for, why you are different, and to innovate your packaging to be the best in class, all you are left with is a commoditised row of boring, drab and unexciting 'me-toos'.

Without brand communication, consumers will orientate to the cheapest products available, because price will become the determining factor. That cannot be a good thing.

If the marketing industry does not fight for its promotional freedoms, then we are a generation away from significant marketing restrictions in a whole host of other categories. The tobacco industry, as expected, continues to lobby against these proposed changes. It is about time its marketing colleagues stood up for tobacco and defended the basic right to communicate its brand integrity for the much longer term.

www.the-pack-hub.com

Views expressed on this page are those of the author and may not be shared by this publication.



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