Tobacco Companies are Using Social Networking Sites to Promote their Products

The largest tobacco companies are turning to Social Networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace to promote their products in violation of international treaties that ban tobacco advertisements, according to a research carried out by University of Sydney public health research team which appeared in the recent issue of the British Medical Journal.

”This page is devoted to Lucly Strike, the very best cigarette brand across the world, so, everyone is welcomed to pay the tribute to this outstanding product,” claims one Facebook page, which according to the research, is administered by a manager of Reynolds American, the second-largest tobacco maker in the U.S.

Among other pages advertising cigarettes, there is a Lucky Strike page with several thousands of followers, provided pictures of old and new Lucky Strike adverts and gives reviews to all the products offered under Lucky Strike brand. According to the research, several employees of British American Tobacco Australia as well have administered pages related to tobacco use.

In a written statement issued in March, David Crow, director of BAT Australia stated that British American Tobacco Australia is not using any social networking site to market any brand produced by the company, as this is a huge violation of Australian’ tobacco advertising regulations.

Mr. Crow said that the company rules clearly prohibit the personnel from distributing brand-related material on any web-site, personal bog, forum, social network or other site in the World Wide Web, regardless of the intention of that post.

BAT Australia’s director added that they would investigate this issue and if they would find individuals who have been responsible for posting tobacco-related material in the web, violating both internal rules and international conventions, they would be required to remove that material as soon as possible.

The report highlights that under Facebook rules the inventor of a page has to confirm that he is an official representative of that organization, project or product and that he/she is allowed to make up a Facebook page with that topic. According to the authors of the research, this rule meant that only British American Tobacco personnel were able to establish such pages.

The report discovered several hundreds network pages for BAT personnel, but mentioned they could not find out whether those pages were a form of advertising and promotion. BAT had the second-highest number of groups and pages related to tobacco products behind Reynolds American Co. The research group found 26 groups devoted to BAT products.

There was one multi-member group which seemed to be promoting Kent cigarette brand and had been created by a BAT Belgium manager.

The report author, Rebecca Freeman, a PhD student at the Sydney University School of Public Health, claimed social networking sites’ pages with tobacco products, violated both the local regulations that prohibit tobacco advertisements and Australian commitments to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Facebook administration was not available to comment.
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