Daily Doc: RJR, 1985: Less Educated: Today's Trend, Tomorrow's Market
Daily Doc: Less Educated: Today's Trend, Tomorrow's Market
Title: Less Educated: Today's Trend, Tomorrow's Market?
RJR, 1985
Bates #: 504617181 -7241
September 10, 2000
Less educated people are more likely to smoke, and the tobacco industry preys upon the less educated as target markets for their products. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the R.J. Reynolds document, Less Educated: Today's Trend, Tomorrow's Market, which gives us insight into the sociological observation and the depth of scrutiny that cigarette companies give their most productive markets.
RJR's view of the less-educated and younger population is bleak, and frankly somewhat depressing. RJR divides the YAS (or "Younger Adult Smoker" market) into two segments: college grads and people who never finish college, describing the latter as being closer in likes and dislikes to those who never finish high school. This document acknowledges that the anti-smoking movement has had a significant effect on the number of young people who do start to smoke. A chart on page 30 portrays the dismal road in life that less educated people are likely to take, and contrasts it with the easier life of the more educated. After high school, less educated people (termed "rockers" by the author in a handwritten note) will break from parents and find an apartment. For them, jobs will be hard to find, and although they may talk about finding success, their pay will be low, they will be bored and unchallenged and have no hope for advancement. By contrast, according to RJR, the most difficult tasks facing college-bound people (or "preps," in a handwritten note) are things like "Check Appropriate Box," "Call Mom & Dad" and "Become a sophomore." The document portrays "acceptance of purposelessness" as a "trend" for the less educated. One charts shows that Marlboro, Winston and KOOL are the cigarettes of the younger and less educated population sectors. Another chart (which is a powerful sociological commentary) shows that older, more educated people tend to own American Express Green Cards, buy Estee' Lauder eye shadow, shop at gourmet specialty stores, drive foreign cars and drink Molsen beer while people in the less educated, younger markets tend to eat at Hardees, attend Tupperware parties, use Avon or Prell shampoo and home perms (pg. 47). On Page 49, the paper portrays the smoking market as follows:
The "average" beer drinker is more educated than the "average" smoker. The most educated smoking brand franchise has about the same educational profile as a Budweiser drinker or a Montgomery Ward credit card holder. The wine, imported beer and foreign car markets are far more educated than the cigarette market.Furthermore, the writer discusses the need to target the wants of the less educated for "style, prestige and status," outlining how RJR should "leverage" the psychological needs of this group:
Need for self-esteemPeople are likely to say there is nothing new or unique about the fact that companies evaluate their markets, but how many members of the consuming public have actually been privy to these evaluations? How many have actually gotten to see how major corporations analyze, study, classify and ultimately regard their consumers? Thanks to the release of the tobacco industry's documents, we now have access to a large cache of such information...
Need to feel in control
Need for security
Need for structure
CITATION
Title: Less Educated: Today's Trend, Tomorrow's Market?
Type of Document: Report
Author: N/A
Recipient: N/A
Date: 19850000
Site: R.J. Reynolds document site http://www.rjrtdocs.com/rjrtdocs/frames.html
Page Count 61
Bates No. 504617181 -7241
URL: No URL. To find this document, go to the R.J. Reynolds document site and enter as "quick search" criteria the phrase "less educated" (without quotation marks). You will get a number of documents, all with the same name. This posting is about No. 8 on the search list, a 61-page long document, which had a number of interesting handwritten notes on it. The other (shorter) versions that are listed are interesting also
Tobacco Documents Online (TDO): Not yet available on TDO
Litigation Usage: N/A
Found Using Search Criteria: "Less educated"
QUOTES
Since the onset of the anti-smoking campaigns, people with higher educational aspirations have been increasingly less likely to smoke. As a result: The younger adult market is less educated than the preceding smoker group, and all evidence suggest this trend will continue. It will take about twenty years for the trend to really impact the market as a whole.
...In the short term, the market in total will not become less educated. However, a change will occur in the age mix: The younger adult market will become less educated, and the older adult market will become more educated....
...Most other product/categories which use an image intensive position, sell to a higher educated consumer.
...The "average" beer drinker is more educated than the "average" smoker.
...The most highly educated smoking brand franchise has about the same educational profile as a Budweiser drinker or a Montgomery Ward Credit Card Holder.
...The wine, imported beer and foreign car markets are far more educated than the cigarette market.
This service is brought to you by the American Lung Association of Colorado ( http://www.alacolo.org/) and Smokescreen ( http://www.smokescreen.org)
To join Doc-Alert, go to http://tobaccodocuments.org/, scroll down to the bottom of the page, enter your email address in the box marked "Daily Document Newsletter," and click *subscribe.*
Visit the Daily Document Archives at http://www.smokescreen.org/list/viewmsgs.cfm?id=66, or, for quick and easy at-a-glance viewing, try Gene Borio's great new Daily Document Archive at http://www.tobacco.org/Documents/dd/dd.html
Anne Landman, Regional Program Coordinator
American Lung Association of Colorado, West Region Office
Grand Junction, CO
(970) 245-2120
afoxland@gj.net
***********************
Go To: Tobacco BBS HomePage / Resources Page / Health Page / Documents Page / Culture Page / Activism Page
***********************
END OF DOCUMENT