The government and anti-smoking lobby groups have South Africa’s tobacco companies in their sights as they launch an offensive against the flouting of tight regulations that outlaw the marketing of tobacco.
According to anti-smoking lobby groups such as the National Council against Smoking (NCAS), tobacco companies are illegally giving away free tobacco products at luxurious secret parties as part of a viral marketing campaign.
The present law prohibits tobacco companies from distributing cigarettes for free or at a discounted price. They can be fined up to R200Â 000 for violating the law.
The parties often compete to out-do one another. One offered fake snow and snowboarders, while others have brought out the hottest international acts for a single night’s performances. One party was seen as such a successful marketing tool that it was nominated for a Loerie award.
The Mail & Guardian this week interviewed a number of young South Africans who have attended lavish parties hosted by cigarette companies, where they were plied with free alcohol, food and cigarettes while being entertained by top local and international music stars.
NCAS executive director Yussuf Saloojee says the new Tobacco Products Control Amendment Bill, set to go before Parliament next month, will go a long way to prevent tobacco companies taking advantage of the ambiguous nature of the 1999 amendment to the Act.
The 1999 amendment to the Act banned all promotion and advertising of tobacco products and made it illegal to distribute these products freely. However, critics such as the NCAS argue that tobacco companies hide behind students who are hired as representatives to distribute product samples and organise the secret parties.
“These tobacco companies will take a loophole and drive a truck through it,” said Saloojee. “We are closing the loopholes.”
He says the new Bill stipulates that tobacco manufacturers and their agents may not distribute free products. Also, when assessing whether a campaign can be judged as advertising, its aim and effect will be taken into account — previously it was just the campaign’s aim, which was hard to prove.
Saloojee says the secret cigarette parties, which have flourished, are illegal. He says tobacco manufacturers have resorted to stealth tactics because they need to attract new, young smokers to sustain the market. According to research, the number of adult smokers has dropped from about 31% in 1993 to 24% in 1999.
“They use this strategy of viral marketing to attract young people who don’t smoke to arouse their interests and create a favourable impression of tobacco companies,” says Saloojee. “This is like a drug dealer who gives out free samples until the users are hooked and then sits back to wait for the money to roll in.”
Saloojee says the total advertising spend by tobacco companies in South Africa before it was outlawed was more than R550-million a year, so the huge amounts they fork out for their parties are small change in comparison.
Cigarette parties are organised by the sales representatives for individual brands that maintain a database of young South Africans in their area. The representatives will e-mail a selection of people from their database, inviting them and a number of their friends to a secret party, with very few details supplied. This creates an air of suspense.
Megan, a student from Durban, says at one stage she would have described herself as a “cigarette-party whore” due to her being on the databases of Rothmans, Camel, Dunhill and Peter Stuyvesant. “They seem to be more elite about it these days,” she says, adding that cigarette companies are spending more and more on the parties, trying to out-do each other.
Megan says the most extravagant party she attended was held by Dunhill in the city’s botanical gardens. It had a Midsummer Night’s Dream theme, with fairy lights and spotlights throughout the garden. “We had to be formally dressed and when we arrived we were transferred from the back parking lot by golf cart to the party entrance.”
In a massive marquee, about 150 people were served a three-course meal and free drinks while being entertained by dancers and singers, including some of the contestants from Idols. “The amount of money spent must have been insane,” she says.
Jamie, a bartender from Durban, recounts a Peter Stuyvesant party he attended last year, which was held in a massive warehouse at the harbour. The party had a winter theme and a bar made out of ice. There was also a fake snow ramp on which South Africa’s top snowboarders gave a demonstration while the patrons were offered free drinks and cigarettes and danced to local DJs. “They normally are the coolest parties,” he says.
Shanna, a guesthouse manager from Durban, says she has attended a number of cigarette parties. The most “lavish” was a party with a Japanese theme hosted in a huge mansion in Durban north. She said at one cigarette-company event she was given an entire carton of cigarettes.
Big tobacco responds
British American Tobacco South Africa says it operates strictly within the tobacco-control regulatory framework. “The only means by which we communicate with our consumers is through permission-based, one-to-one communication with consenting adult smokers over the age of 18, notwithstanding that the current statutory prescribed age for purchasing tobacco products is 16,” says media-relations manager Anthea Abraham.
“Current tobacco-control legislation only prohibits above-the-line advertising; the result of which is that one-to-one communication is permissible, according to current tobacco legislation,” says Abraham. “As a matter of company policy, no packs of free cigarettes are given away at events, to which only consenting adult consumers over the age of 18 are invited.”
Japan Tobacco International did not respond to the Mail & Guardian‘s request for comment.
After-action dissatisfaction
I remember the jealousy. Having just returned from a working holiday in the United Kingdom, I was peeved to find out that my friends had just seen the Violent Femmes live in Durban, courtesy of Lucky Strike cigarettes.
Their tales of clandestine ticket arrangements, secret internet access codes, countless free drinks and a surprise show by one of my favourite bands sounded too good to be true. How could this happen?
When rumour hit the streets a few months later of another Lucky Strike party, the excitement hit fever pitch. Who would it be this time? I kept my ear to the ground, determined not to lose out on another happening event.
Then came a phone call from my friend Dave to say that he was e-mailing me a secret password and a website to log on to the following Monday.
Monday came and went and soon we were careering across town to pick up our allotted tickets. We were told to meet in a multistorey car park in central Durban the following Saturday. Where were we going? Who would be playing? It was all too much.
The following Saturday turned out to be a disappointment, scoring high in the novelty stakes, but low on the entertainment front. Far from being carted off to some luxurious venue to see an international rock band, we were allowed on to the top of a parking garage, where a rooftop party was set to take place — not just one rooftop party, but three. Staring out across the city we could see two other parties, as Durbanites danced the night away to local DJs while consuming the free drinks and cigarettes on offer.
This was to be my one and only cigarette party experience. Dave, on the other hand, made it to a few more. He was carted down the South Coast for a luxurious beach party and holed up in an empty airport hangar to watch American band Wheatus. As he says now: “I was never that impressed.”
A colleague, Yolandi, says she was invited to a comedy evening by radio DJ Alex Jay, but when she arrived she realised that it was a cigarette party. “The invitation promised king-size comedy — it said nothing about king-size smoking, but that was exactly what I got,” she says.
“The comedy was great but I’ve never seen so many people smoking in one place; it wasn’t nice. At the beginning of the evening, before the cigarettes were distributed, Alex Jay, our host for the evening, read what amounted to a disclaimer that gave Winston permission to distribute the cigarettes.
“As soon as we sat down at our table, the gifts started rolling in. Cartons and cartons of Winston cigarettes were distributed to happy smokers. I definitely was not one. I felt like a pariah watching everyone around me, including my smoking friend light up while I just smiled and declined every offer.”
Yolandi says a friend of hers, along with hundreds of other ravers, was flown from Jo’burg to Cape Town by Peter Stuyvesant to attend a massive dance party.