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Tobacco manufacturers have used their advertising skills to help children market sweetened beverages – even by inventing the single-serve juice box, according to a new study that looked at previously sealed documents.
The research, reunited by experts from the tobacco industry of the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), shows how two tobacco titans, RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris, have adapted and sold their marketing strategies including bright colors, flavors and memorable characters. – promote popular drinks such as Kool-Aid and Capri Sun to children. The tobacco companies were forced to disclose the documents after legal proceedings in the 1990s.
"The leaders of the two largest tobacco companies based in the United States have developed colors and aromas as additives for cigarettes and used them to create large lines of children's beverages," said Laura Schmidt, lead author of the study and UCSF member Philip R Lee. Institute for Health Policy Studies, in a press release. "Even after tobacco companies sold these brands to food and beverage companies, many of the product lines and marketing techniques designed to attract kids are still in use today."
The study shows how tobacco companies changed course as tobacco became subject to increasing regulatory oversight in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing their marketing efforts on beverages that would eventually become staple foods. base for American children. RJ Reynolds, for example, purchased Hawaiian Punch in 1963 and developed the "Punchy" mascot to promote what was originally an adult badtail mixer via toys, schoolbooks, comics and cartoons. television commercials. In 1983, the company offered the country's first fruit juice box, touting a "practical little box delivered with its own straw".
Philip Morris, the owner of Marlboro cigarettes, acquired Kool-Aid in 1985. The company then "transformed its audience into marketing families into children," according to researchers, creating the Kool-Aid Man. The mascot has become a ubiquitous figure for many young Millennials, thanks to commercials and branded partnerships with Barbie and Hot Wheels. The study reveals that Philip Morris has also developed a loyalty program for children, Kool-Aid, described as "our version of the Marlboro Country Store," a cigarette promotion program.
"The Wacky Wild Kool-Aid style campaign had a considerable reach and impact," said Kim Nguyen, one of the study's lead authors, in the press release, noting that "the Children's program Kool-Aid has been modeled on a tobacco marketing strategy designed to: Build an allegiance with smokers.
Researchers say the study shows why "well-enforced government regulations on the marketing of sugary drinks to children should replace current industry standards."
"The industry says that these tobacco-based marketing strategies do not really target children and should be excluded from these industry agreements," said Schmidt. "But the evidence cited in our study shows that these product lines and marketing techniques were specifically designed and tested for children."
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