‘The media didn’t want our ads’: Philip Morris comms boss
Philip Morris International had a problematic culture of ‘no comment’ and didn’t put names on its press releases, the tobacco company’s senior vice president of communications, Marian Salzman, has told an audience at Mumbrella CommsCon.
As a result of being a faceless brand – and people’s increasingly negative attitude towards tobacco – she said she’s had to spend time with companies persuading them to take the company’s advertising dollar.
Addressing Australia’s frostiness towards cigarettes, Salzman told the CommsCon crowd: “I’ve never stood up in front of an audience in a country where I knew I represented something that’s kind of hated”.
She said that before she got to Australia, she “didn’t really understand just how severe the dislike was for what we’re doing and where we are on our mission”.
“One of my first experiences was trying to unravel the fact that media would call, and it would go to a voicemail that we might or might not check, we might or might not respond,” she said.
She said she had to transform the belief that media relations had no place within the company.
“We didn’t put people’s names on our press releases,” she continued. “My first big executive decision was that for every press release that goes out of here, someone needs to have enough pride in what we’re putting out to put their name and their cell phone number on it.”
This led to misunderstandings about the brand’s purpose and intentions, she argued.
“Most paid media didn’t really want our ads when I got here,” she said.
“I had to go with ads to meet with major media companies to persuade them to take our advertising, and to understand how our advertising worked, and to understand that our first belief is that if you don’t smoke, don’t start.”
According to Salzman, 80% of PMI’s revenue still comes from combustible cigarettes, but 80% of its marketing spend is focussed on promoting a “smoke-free future”.
She explained part of PMI’s strategy was to put a human face to the brand, because “it’s really easy to hate big companies”.
“You’ll notice almost all of our communications have real people, with real jobs, real names, really putting out their point of view.”
In order for her to do her job, the comms boss admitted she had to learn to be what she called “a flatliner”.
“I pick up the phone, I assume something bad is going to happen on the other end… in learning how to do these things, it’s really changed me,” she said.
During her talk, she anticipated the criticism that might be directed at her, saying: “It’s really easy for you to say to me: ‘Why don’t you stop selling cigarettes?’ If we stopped selling cigarettes this morning, our competitors will sell cigarettes and tobacco product to everyone who wants to buy it.”
Salzman made it clear she didn’t agree with smoking, telling the crowd that her dad had died of lung cancer.
“I told the builders to pull our fireplace out. I will not live in a house with combustion after everything I have learned in these 11-and-a-half months at Philip Morris. The burn is really the enemy of good health. We have to do what we can to explain that.”
In her presentation’s conclusion, Salzman contended that PMI was a “really easy target”.
“It’s probably really easy for one or more of you to stand up and tell me that I ‘should be ashamed of myself, why would you do this to you career, how can you possibility face yourself in the mirror?’ Those are all questions I’ve already had to ask myself, we’re already used to the criticism, and some of it is fair. Some of it is really fair.
“We have to ask ourselves: ‘Are we here to get people to stop using combustible tobacco?’ If we are, that’s a noble choice, and if we’re not, it’s not a good thing to do or be.”
Your company is built on death. Your wage is paid by death. If you were here to “stop people using combustible tobacco” you wouldn’t be selling cigarettes, period.
What a joke.
User ID not verified.
My thoughts exactly
User ID not verified.
……but oh so good with that first beer on a Friday arvo.
User ID not verified.
Agree entirely, and disappointed in Mumbrella for having them speak.
User ID not verified.
We’re very lucky in Australia that we have the strict anti-smoking and public health laws that we do. But go to any emerging economy and you will see an environment cluttered with cigarette advertising, with products promoted and sold to children as well as adults. In those markets, the battle against cancer is being fought by companies like Phillip Morris, and cancer is winning. It’s all very well and good for Ms Salzman to come to Australia and peddle her “We don’t want people to start smoking” line but that is very clearly not the case in countries where poor, vulnerable people are taken advantage of by the pro-cancer lobby. This is capitalism at it’s most cynical, most corrupt and most hypocritical.
User ID not verified.
Mumbrella can get in the bin for having a speaker like this.
What can anyone learn from a marketer whose job it is to lie?
User ID not verified.
80% of your revenue is from cigarettes but 80% of your marketing is on IQOS. Well, doh! That’s because governments all over the world except in basket-case nations mostly with high corruption indices, have long banned tobacco advertising.
User ID not verified.
“It’s really easy for you to say to me: ‘Why don’t you stop selling cigarettes?’ If we stopped selling cigarettes this morning, our competitors will sell cigarettes and tobacco product to everyone who wants to buy it.” That’s rather like someone buying stolen goods or pirating music saying “If I don’t do it, plenty of other people will”. Rather neat way of avoiding the ethical issues? See https://simonchapman6.com/2019/02/12/if-we-stopped-selling-cigarettes-tomorrow-someone-else-would-take-our-place/
User ID not verified.
Rachel, Australia’s laws on smoking are a joke. Who’s shouldering the burden of all that tax? Those that can least afford it.
Piling in on big tobacco is easy; for governments, marketers, anyone. Their past sins are well documented. But where is all the passion and taxes for the biggest lobbyists and ad spenders, Coles, Woolies, Coke, Yum, McDonald’s, Mars, Airlines, Auto manufacturers, Gambling, were these industries at the event? Have they got their own issues? Are we holding them to the same level of account. Do we all gladly take their money?
Good on Mumbrella for inviting her. I think a lot of the delegates would have a lot to learn from her as their own industries will face a lot of the same issues in the future.
User ID not verified.
Haven’t we already seen this movie?
User ID not verified.
@trying to be an ex smoker
We would like you to hold onto that addictive feeling of smoothness! The robust flavour, the suaveness, etc
User ID not verified.
What facile comments follow an article that should elicit something more considered.
A pity.
User ID not verified.
Shame on Mumbrella for having PMI speak.
Mumbrella will no doubt use the argument that they’re a non-partisan media outlet and all brands have a voice in our industry landscape. But Mumbrella knows this is as much a bullshit excuse as PMI’s good-guy rhetoric.
User ID not verified.
“Most paid media didn’t really want our ads when I got here,” she said.
Assuming she is talking about Australian, it is illegal to advertise tobacco, or even to show people smoking. So I’m wondering, who was taking their money and showing the adv.
User ID not verified.
Ah yes the old “good people on both sides” argument. How very 2019.
User ID not verified.
Really? What should we discuss?
The pros and cons of promoting a business that kills people?
How to claim that you are trying to stop people smoking while selling them cigarettes?
What about how to make out you are the good guy because if you weren’t selling it to them, someone else will? I mean, imagine if it was the bad guys selling cigarettes!
User ID not verified.
As ever, thank you to all for the comments above and participating in the debate, no matter whether you agreed with PMI being invited to speak or not. As some have already noted, yes, Mumbrella will always broach the tough topics that are relevant to the industries we cover and push conversations into the spotlight that need to be there.
In this case, PMI was relevant for a number of reasons specifically for CommsCon 2019. The main were Salzman’s appointment last year from such a high profile PR agency role, PMI’s push to engage with agencies recently, particularly at Cannes, and the refresh of communications about how it promotes the business.
We are here to put these topics in the spotlight for debate, which we did yesterday. The side you choose to sit on is completely up to you which is why we will embrace the positive and negative feedback equally.
We were encouraged to see that the large audience yesterday got heavily involved in the session, asked tough but fair questions and hopefully walked away with the answers they wanted and deserved.
Damian Francis
Head of Paid Content
Mumbrella
I wasn’t at the conference but I welcome the discussion this appearance has generated. I hope it hastens the pace to the gambling industry being constrained by exactly the same regulation as tobacco, in advertising their socially toxic messages. I cringe at ever one of the TVCs I see for gambling: not just for the crap creative but for the obvious targeting to the poor addictive personalities who decline, so that the profits of these parasitic corporations may rise.
User ID not verified.
Many self righteous comments here… And yet how many Australian ad agencies would turn down work from gambling companies, which do just as much damage to people’s lives? Many big holding groups proudly roll out betting industry logos on their creds slides without a second thought.
User ID not verified.
If you are upset that Mumbrella have PM a platform:
According to science, consuming cold beverages with hot food does the following:
1. Restricts Digestion
2. Inhibits Breakdown of Fats
3. Decreases Heart Rate
Why does the press offer a platform to the manufacturer, distributor, retailer, and seller of soft drinks, chilled water, wine, and alcohol?
–
If you are upset that Mumbrella invites contrarian people to events:
So the solution is to censor everyone you disagree with, lock yourself in an echo chamber of people with similar ideas, expose yourself to nothing that challenges your POV, and then wonder why we were so out of touch as to how Trump/Brexit happened?
User ID not verified.
So you leapt to “never challenge yourself” from people rightly condemning the predatory tobacco industry? Big leap.
User ID not verified.
Well that’s a new one. I’ve never heard cigarettes compared with water before.
Wake me up when bottled water kills millions of people each year. Including my father in law, who is slowly dying after 50 years of smoking.
User ID not verified.