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Marketing of Tobacco Products Essay examples

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Marketing of Tobacco Products

Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and values with others.(Kotler, Armstrong, Saunders, Wong page 5) One of the products that are exchanged through marketing is cigarettes. Tobacco is considered an inherently unethical product because is addictive, dangerous and causes environmental damage. Tobacco is also considered a pleasing product because its immediate satisfaction is high but sometimes has harmful effects in the long run. One of the long run effects of smoking is that four million people are killed every year and is estimated that the figure will rise to ten million by 2030 …show more content…

(Yach, Brinchmann, Bellet page 4, 7 and Sloman page 85).This injustice, urged the department of justice to file a civil lawsuit in 1999, against the largest tobacco companies, to recover the cost that federal government has to spend on smoking-related illness each year. However our concern here is not only about the cigarette as a product but with the ethics of cigarettes as well, that affect the social process of marketing. This is because marketing process makes things worse and is also considered as unethical, and as a result has a significant negative impact on the societal welfare. Multinational tobacco companies apply sophisticated strategies ( such as putting flavor in the cigarettes and placing cigarettes in the shops near the sweets to make them more appealing) and invest huge amounts of money for marketing, in order to establish brand familiarity and future loyalty among young peoplem, to secure profits in the long run. 'The tobacco epidemic is a man-made international health crisis, created and sustained by multinational tobacco corporations.' (Yach, Brinchmann, Bellet page 2). Fortunately, the tobacco industry's behavior is likely to change due to the increasing legal and societal pressures. Much legislation has been imposed to tobacco firms based on codes of behavior, different government strategies and litigations, especially after 1980 where anti-smoking groups reactions, led to higher restrictions throughout

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