The article Get the Facts Right! Learn More about Tobacco Products posted on the Singapore Government website tells the readers about the dangers of smoking. Despite the relatively low readers’ article rating, it seems to be informative and very well-structured. Facts are laid out objectively and in a precise manner. Although it may seem less persuasive than the article with the high level of the author’s involvement in the topic and explicit personal statement, the facts increase the verisimilitude of the harms caused by smoking, thus making the article thought-provoking. Appeal to logic is more convincing in this case than appeal to feelings. Besides, appeal to such an authoritative organization as the World Health Organization increases the overall persuasiveness. Information is structured and logically divided into the following sections: Facts about tobacco, Thank you for not smoking: Facts about cigarettes, From Cuba with love: Facts about cigars, Doing it yourself: Facts about roll-your-own cigarettes, The lure of the exotic: Facts about shisha (waterpipe) smoking, Chew on this: Facts about oral smokeless tobacco, Electronic addiction: Facts about e-cigarettes, and So remember. All the sections contain a lot of statistics and useful information as well as data relevant not only for Singapore but for the whole world: “Consumption of oral smokeless tobacco is prevalent in the United States, Scandinavia and parts of Asia”. Moreover, the article contains several health tools like iQuit, My Quit Plan, SP Healthcast, and Quit Smoking Calculator, which significantly contributes to the level of its usefulness.
The website TobaccoFreedom.org posts a lot of information about one of the largest US cigarette manufacturers Philip Morris or, as the author calls it, “a company with more money than God”. The article starts with a short review of the charity activity of the company. However, the author then refutes the image of “a good corporate citizen” by mentioning numerous statistical data that prove the opposite viewpoint. The company is claimed to have enormous profits and earn a lot of money on selling harmful cigarette products to US citizens. Figures and tables from the Federal Trade Commission’s report increase the persuasiveness of the article. The article also analyzes “the switching games” within the industry. Notes of the article contain the 2001 FTC Cigarette Report for 1999 and the description of the current business situation. Information is well-structured being divided into several sections such as A company with “more money than God”, Are things changing?, Advertising and promotion, Advertising goals, and Playing the switching game. On the whole, the article is informative, credible, and persuasive. From the language mode, it is obvious that the author’s level of engagement in the topic is high. It is explicitly understood that the author’s attitude to the Philip Morris, namely to its CEO Geoffrey Bible, is negative.
“This is the corporate website of Phillip Morris USA. It does not sell, advertise or offer promotions for our products”. Phillip Morris is the largest tobacco company in the United States. The website is constructed in such a way as to attract attention and emphasize the company’s willingness to comply with the federal law regulations as well as with the recent medical researches. Thus, PM USA “agrees cigarette smoking is addictive and helps connect adult smokers with expert quitting information”. The website information is subdivided into such sections as Company, Products, Responsibility, Careers, Media, and Social as well as the Newsfeed, Company Highlights, and Other Topics. The website activity stretches over the time span of 1999-2012 and is constantly updated. The company’s representatives responsible for the website are obviously deeply engaged in the promotion and maintenance of the PM’s positive image.
The website Truth is aimed at the anti-smoking movement; however, it claims that their “philosophy isn’t antismoker or pro-smoker. It’s not even about smoking. It’s about the tobacco industry manipulating their products, research, and advertising to secure replacements for the 1,200 customers they “lose” every day in America…because they die”. The website is not a very official one, but of a more colloquial direction. It is determined by the main target audience that is the youth. It is obvious that its creators are deeply involved in the topic and try to organize social events that would attract public attention to the issue. For instance, there was started the concert season “in hopes of changing the name of Lung Cancer to Big Tobacco Disease”. Overall, the website content may be divided into several chunks such as About, Facts, Music, Games, Sports, and Blog. People can join the movement through various social networks, which increases its general persuasiveness and appeal.
The article of 15 February 2008 by Marketing Campaign Case Studies tells the success story of the Truth Campaign, Adweek’s Best Campaign of 2000 and the recipient of the 2005 Grand EFFIE. “Truth” is the innovative approach of anti-smoking policy promotion since it has tried “to sell the product of not smoking in the same way it did for other clients”. This national teen anti-smoking campaign has been funded for five years by tobacco companies. It was created by the advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky and Arnold Worldwide that “rather than taking a just-say-no approach that would likely prove counterproductive” tried to exploit the youths’ rebelliousness through channeling it against tobacco companies. The campaign has proved to be very successful in terms of attracting public attention to the issue and the general decrease in teen tobacco consumers. Although there is no 100% proof that this decrease was caused solely by the Truth campaign, the evidence seemed to indicate this, thus increasing the article’s credibility and persuasiveness. Although the author tries to be objective, it is obvious that he/she feels sympathetic to the movement. Withal, the article is informative. Its division into several sections like overview, historical context, target market, competition, and marketing strategy facilitates the comprehension of the content. The author proves the information with various statistical data and appeals to authority, thus increasing the credibility and persuasiveness of the non-smoking idea. On the whole, this article gives an analysis of the marketing strategy of the Truth campaign, which has its own website that has been previously analyzed.
The 2008 Mariah Wojdacz’s article Tobacco Companies Pay Big Bucks for Anti-smoking Campaigns gives a brief analysis of the funding sources of controversial anti-smoking advertisements that have become increasingly popular. Nowadays, the majority of these commercials may be traced to the American Legacy Foundation’s recent project called “The Truth”. This project has received money from large tobacco companies. The article discusses the disadvantages of the settlement that regulates the allowed limit of outright criticism of the tobacco companies. The article contains a lot of facts and figures which prove its informative usefulness and increases persuasiveness. Although the author does not explicitly state her position on the issue, it becomes evidential that one passage with positive information cannot outweigh all the negatively connotated ones. The article contains commentaries where the readers can share their opinions. In general, the article is informative, credible, and persuasive. The author gives true reasons why large tobacco companies invest in their rivals, i.e. into various anti-smoking campaigns.