How does the tobacco industry attempt to influence marketing regulations? A systematic review

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control makes a number of recommendations aimed at restricting the marketing of tobacco products. Tobacco industry political activity has been identified as an obstacle to Parties' development and implementation of these provisions. This study systematically reviews the existing literature on tobacco industry efforts to influence marketing regulations and develops taxonomies of 1) industry strategies and tactics and 2) industry frames and arguments. METHODS: Searches were conducted between April-July 2011, and updated in March 2013. Articles were included if they made reference to tobacco industry efforts to influence marketing regulations; supported claims with verifiable evidence; were written in English; and concerned the period 1990-2013. 48 articles met the review criteria. Narrative synthesis was used to combine the evidence. RESULTS: 56% of articles focused on activity in North America, Europe or Australasia, the rest focusing on Asia (17%), South America, Africa or transnational activity. Six main political strategies and four main frames were identified. The tobacco industry frequently claims that the proposed policy will have negative unintended consequences, that there are legal barriers to regulation, and that the regulation is unnecessary because, for example, industry does not market to youth or adheres to a voluntary code. The industry primarily conveys these arguments through direct and indirect lobbying, the promotion of voluntary codes and alternative policies, and the formation of alliances with other industrial sectors. The majority of tactics and arguments were used in multiple jurisdictions. CONCLUSIONS: Tobacco industry political activity is far more diverse than suggested by existing taxonomies of corporate political activity. Tactics and arguments are repeated across jurisdictions, suggesting that the taxonomies of industry tactics and arguments developed in this paper are generalisable to multiple jurisdictions and can be used to predict industry activity.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087389
Divisions: College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities > Sociology and Policy
Additional Information: © 2014 Savell et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: National Cancer Institute of the United States National Institutes of Health (R01CA160695); and ESRC (ES/I900284/1).
Uncontrolled Keywords: humans,marketing,politics,tobacco industry
Publication ISSN: 1932-6203
Last Modified: 04 Mar 2024 08:15
Date Deposited: 08 Oct 2015 11:20
Full Text Link: http://journals ... al.pone.0087389
Related URLs:
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2014-02-05
Authors: Savell, Emily
Gilmore, Anna B.
Fooks, Gary (ORCID Profile 0000-0003-0080-4802)

Download

[img]

Version: Published Version

License: Creative Commons Attribution


Export / Share Citation


Statistics

Additional statistics for this record