Harm from tobacco: a common thread

Industry uses market segmentation of products to attract and retain consumers from a variety of groups based on demographics, interests, behavioural factors and common needs. This approach is used across many commercial sectors selling a diverse range of commodities including cleaning, beauty, food, automobile and electronic products. Consumers may be attracted to goods based on a number of characteristics including price, packaging, advertising or ease of use. There may also be a perception among consumers that some products are ‘safer’ to use or consume, perhaps based on frequency of use, appearance, marketing and peer influencers.1 The tobacco industry has been adept at using market segmentation across its tobacco range, for example, evoking emotion and identity by differentiating cigars (tobacco wrapped in tobacco leaf, eg celebration, Winston Churchill), pipe tobacco (thicker tobacco strands, eg, concentration, Sherlock Holmes) and cigarettes (fine ground tobacco, eg, relaxation—music and film celebrities).2 Other examples of market segmentation deployed by the tobacco industry include; filters to imply safety3; menthol flavourings to attract young people and specific ethnic groups …