ArticleTobacco control2016
"Gone are the days of mass-media marketing plans and short term customer relationships": tobacco industry direct mail and database marketing strategies.
Article in Tobacco control, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Tobacco Couponing: A Systematic Review of Exposures and Effects on Tobacco Initiation and Cessation.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2022Pooled it
- A Systematic Review of E-Cigarette Marketing Communication: Messages, Communication Channels, and Strategies.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Removing Price Discounts From the Tobacco Retail Environment: Effects on College Students' Risk of Using Smokeless Tobacco, Little Cigars, and Electronic Nicotine Delivery Devices.Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs · 2026Trial
- Receipt and Use of Tobacco Product Coupons Among Adults Who Use Cigarettes, Cigars, and Smokeless Tobacco: Reasons for Use and Association With Subsequent Tobacco Product Purchases.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2026Article
- Monitoring of tobacco product marketing for rapid public health surveillance in the United States.Preventive medicine reports · 2026Article
- Tobacco Company Efforts to Persuade Consumers to Fight the Proposed Federal Menthol Cigarette and Flavored Cigar Bans in the United States.American journal of public health · 2025Article
- Oral nicotine product marketing expenditures in the USA from 2016 to 2023: trends over time by brand and targeted media outlets.Tobacco control · 2025Article
- Temporal and Thematic Analysis of Promotional Waterpipe-Related Posts on Twitter/X in the US.Substance use & misuse · 2025Article
- Recognition of Online E-cigarette Marketing and E-cigarette-Related Attitudes and Behaviors Among Young Adults.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2024Article
- Financial hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic and increased receipt of commercial tobacco discount coupons among US adults who use commercial tobacco.Tobacco control · 2024Article
- Cumulative Exposure to E-Cigarette Coupons and Changes in E-Cigarette Use Among U.S. Adults.American journal of preventive medicine · 2024Article
- Presence of flavoured electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) products in US ENDS advertisements, 2015-2020: a content analysis.BMJ open · 2023Article
- The Longitudinal Association Between Cigarette Coupon Receipt and Short-term Smoking Cessation Among US Adults.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2023Article
- The Short-Term and Long-Term Associations Between Receiving Tobacco Discounts or Coupons and Smoking Cessation Among U.S. Adult Cigarette Smokers With Intention to Quit.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2023Article
- A Content Analysis of Promotional Features in US Direct-Mail From Advertisements Across Tobacco Products From 2018 to 2020.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2022Article
- Oral nicotine marketing claims in direct-mail advertising.Tobacco control · 2022Article
- Reasons for Pack Size Purchase among US Adults Who Purchase Cigars.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Associations between Black and Mild Cigar Pack Size and Demographics and Tobacco Use Behaviors among US Adults.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Digital marketing of smokeless tobacco: A longitudinal analysis of exposure and initiation among young adults.Addictive behaviors · 2021Article
- Do tobacco industry websites target content to specific demographic groups?Drug and alcohol dependence · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAs limitations on traditional marketing tactics and scrutiny by tobacco control have increased, the tobacco industry has benefited from direct mail marketing which transmits marketing messages directly to carefully targeted consumers utilising extensive custom consumer databases. However, research in these areas has been limited. This is the first study to examine the development, purposes and extent of direct mail and customer databases.
methodsWe examined direct mail and database marketing by RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris utilising internal tobacco industry documents from the Legacy Tobacco Document Library employing standard document research techniques.
resultsDirect mail marketing utilising industry databases began in the 1970s and grew from the need for a promotional strategy to deal with declining smoking rates, growing numbers of products and a cluttered media landscape. Both RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris started with existing commercial consumer mailing lists, but subsequently decided to build their own databases of smokers' names, addresses, brand preferences, purchase patterns, interests and activities. By the mid-1990s both RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris databases contained at least 30 million smokers' names each. These companies valued direct mail/database marketing's flexibility, efficiency and unique ability to deliver specific messages to particular groups as well as direct mail's limited visibility to tobacco control, public health and regulators.
conclusionsDatabase marketing is an important and increasingly sophisticated tobacco marketing strategy. Additional research is needed on the prevalence of receipt and exposure to direct mail items and their influence on receivers' perceptions and smoking behaviours.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.