Cigarette Makers Use Trade-Ins To Lure Hong Kong Smokers (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

                          June 29, 1998
 Cigarette Makers Use Trade-Ins 
 To Lure Hong Kong Smokers

 By JOANNE LEE-YOUNG 
 Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

 HONG KONG -- In an era when cigarette advertising
 is under attack, tobacco companies here still use an
 unusually blunt sales pitch: Smoke more, get a prize.

 Around the world, cigarette makers are under pressure
 to moderate their marketing. But one of the industry's
 less moderate marketing tricks, the cigarette packet
 trade-in, still thrives in Hong Kong. It works like this:
 Smokers exchange empty packs for gifts. The more you
 smoke, the more gifts you get.

 The effectiveness of these promotions was seen again
 Friday by Philip Morris Cos., maker of Marlboros.
 Thousands of people lined up for up to eight hours,
 battling rain and bus fumes in the busy Causeway Bay
 shopping district to trade in their empty Marlboro
 cigarette boxes. In return, they received knapsacks,
 lanterns, Zippo lighters and other knick-knacks sporting
 the Marlboro name.

 Among those who joined the crowds was Jannie Wong,
 age 49. A restaurant cashier, Ms. Wong started lining up
 with her 60 cartons at 5 a.m. Because only 10 boxes
 can be traded in at a time, she was already on her
 second round fighting for sidewalk space as a lunchtime
 crowd joined the line. "I got two coin pouches, but I
 want a wallet too," she said. Eventually, the line
 stretched out of a basement shopping center and
 extended for several city blocks. Police were out in
 force, keeping the crowd in line with cordons.

 Daniel Kwan, a 30-year-old cook, was waiting for a
 knapsack. A smoker, Mr. Kwan muttered his disgust
 over nonsmokers in the line-up. "They're just buying
 boxes, dumping the cigarettes and jumping in the line."

 Promotions such as these upset antismoking activists,
 who worry that they target young, would-be smokers.
 But there's little they can do now. By 1999, giveaway
 promotions by tobacco companies will be banned in
 Hong Kong. "So, they're going all out for that youth
 market now," said Alfred Chan, senior project manager
 at the Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health. The
 Hong Kong arm of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., a unit
 of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., recently offered an
 autographed videodisk of local pop singer Leon Lai for
 every three boxes of Salem cigarettes turned in.

 Philip Morris insists that the campaign is targeted at
 smokers who are already Marlboro customers. Receipts
 signed by prize redeemers ask for confirmation that they
 are smokers aged 18 years and older. But, C. Lum, a
 Philip Morris marketing executive in Hong Kong, admits
 that with the crowds out there, it hasn't been easy to
 keep tabs on age requirements. "Our purpose is not to
 encourage people to smoke," he says. "But you know
 how people in Hong Kong love promotions that involve
 prizes. We can't control that."




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