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Philip Morris suspends social campaign after Reuters exposes young 'influencers'
- Despegar 8y agoGreat synergies here with the Philip Morris of tech.
- doe88 8y agoUnbelievable. In 2019 doing that kind of things, it's pure evil.
- 123789222 8y agoIt's exactly what i expected evil to look like in 2019
- colechristensen 8y agoWhat qualifies this as evil?
- lstodd 8y agoMust be children.
- 1over137 8y agoWouldn't it be pure evil in any year?
- lstodd 8y agoIQOS is crap, it failed from the start and this is just a face-saving act. If anyone is interested, it could never have had enough battery for a decent puff. A half-hearted attempt at beating ecigs. It could not have succeded.
- CydeWeys 8y agoNot enough for one puff? Why not? Batteries can hold a substantial amount of energy in them. It seems you are being hyperbolic; what I'm seeing is that they run for 5-6 minutes on a full battery, which is substantially more than one puff.
- lstodd 8y agoBelieve me, I've tried it. Or don't and try it yourself, but smoke a couple years at least before that, to really feel the edge. You just can't pack enough battery and a heater in the same form factor to beat combustion energy output, even if you cut the "cig" length in two as they did. edit: besides, their heater design sucks.
- mellowhype 8y agoYou're wrong, the smoking pen holds about 5-6 mins pers cigarette (Heets), and the device holds around 20 or more pen recharges. I've been smoking it since March 2017. I'm on my 2nd device. I've been smoking regular cigarettes since 2010 before IQOS.
- lstodd 8y agoNo I'm not. It's just depends on a person's smoking style. It was not delivering a satisfactory puff for me when it still had a charge, then just fell flat because the dimunitive battery couldn't take more. I also never achieved anywhere close to 20 recharges of the pen. More like 7-9. This was not acceptable, especially as the tobacco itself was pipe-grade, much better than the usual nitro paper one finds in cigarettes. In fact I extracted all the unused tobacco and smoked it in my old pipes. After that, I'm mixing my own ecig juice and that's much healthier and nicotine doses are much more controllable. Also: to hell with Philip Morris.
- mellowhype 8y agoA device that recharges the pen only 7-9 times is broken and can be changed under warranty for no charge. Either that, or your device was a replica, seriously. I highly doubt someone's smoking style affects the battery power of the smoking pen, because, if you smoke from it like a train engine, it's just got nothing to burn anymore and shuts off - like a normal cigarette. There's nothing related to the battery itself.
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- myth_drannon 8y agoI wonder if these influencers are coming from the Russian troll farms that were trying to spread propaganda during US elections. I would be very surprised if they kept the same head count.
- burgerzzz 8y agoSureee...
- mrtweetyhack 8y agoOh no, the press found out. Let's spin this so we look like the good guys. We'll try again later. - Morris
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- friedman23 8y agoGo on youtube and search for juul videos and look at how many of these videos are essentially paid advertising targeted at children.
- anonymous5133 8y agoA lot of videos also look like promo videos for people selling counterfeit juul products.
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- save_ferris 8y agoIMO, a major vulnerability of social media is ability to coopt the influencer model into an advertising scheme laundered of accountability, and this keeps happening. We recently saw Jake Paul and others covertly pushing loot boxes (glorified digital gambling) to kids on YouTube. There needs to be legislation with serious teeth that brings the standards of online advertising and influence-pushing in line with more established forms of media. You know when you're watching paid advertising on TV, but on YouTube you're banking that whoever you're watching is being honest. And based on stories like the loot box snafu, those guys were getting six-figure checks to create those videos. Such errors of judgment deserve serious consequences, plain and simple.
- dmix 8y ago> We recently saw Jake Paul and others covertly pushing loot boxes Did Jake Paul mention it was an advertisement or that he had any relationship with the company or game he was promoting? Most big podcasts have 'live reads' but inter-spliced within the show, but it's very obvious it's an ad (even though they don't always mention that fact directly). Still, what this actually means in practice is still a big question IMO. What would be the criteria for crossing that line... Non-obvious ads + a target audience of ~90% kids audience? Does it also apply to PG movies/TVs shows on the platform or just Jake Paul-esque 'reality' shows with a young audience? What's about the difference between shows with an obvious relationship with vendors (ie, unboxing) vs just directly hocking it to users?
- save_ferris 8y agoFirstly, gambling companies shouldn't be allowed to market to kids at all, full stop. Secondly, Jake Paul appeared to do the bare minimum legally to post the video (a small, singline-line "Sponsored by Mystery Company" disclaimer note is displayed towards the beginning of the video. What was particularly heinous in this situation was that Jake Paul spent a lot of money betting on certain boxes and wound up winning a handful of high-priced items. They did not make it clear in the video that what they were doing was actual gambling, instead choosing to focus on "winning prizes". Another YouTuber, Ricegum, even went as far to claim to the effect that this was like investing your money and watching it grow. Absolutely unacceptable language in any advertising case. Here's one specific perspective of what happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ewyEF3Wd9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ewyEF3Wd9M
- mellowhype 8y agoFor those of you who didn't read, the article states: "The company’s internal “marketing standards” prohibit it from promoting tobacco products with youth-oriented celebrities or “models who are or appear to be under the age of 25.” So the age limit in discussion is self imposed by the company, which is 25. The 'young influencer' mentioned is 21 years old. I don't see this as anything above a journalistic sensationalism.
- halter73 8y agoSure, but the article also states: "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month decided it would allow sales of the IQOS device in the United States after a two-year review process in which Philip Morris repeatedly assured the regulator that it would warn young people away from the product." I'm sure Phillip Morris made the FDA well aware of their "self-imposed" age limit when pushing for FDA approval. I doubt Phillip Morris introduced this age limit because they suddenly found their moral compass or started to hate making money. I'm sure they use it to get regulators off their back, so this definitely isn't a good look for them.
- mellowhype 8y agoShe was 21 years old. Not 16. Not 17. Not 18. Not 19. Not even 20. But, 21 years old. Twenty-one.
- hjk05 8y agoIf they felt that 21 was ok, they could have made that their limit. The point is that they used the 25 age limit to push through legislation and then. Immediately broke it when it came time to push the product.
- cubano 8y agoIDK...Is it just me or do I give the individual adult more credit then, it would seem, most others do? Russian troll farms...influencers..BFuckingD. People are responsible for their behavior, and just because some good looking tool on Social does this or votes for that sure doesn't mean you're absolved from responsibility for choosing to follow or not. Sure...kids need to ABSOLUTELY be protected and the punishments to those who attempt to lead them astray should be as deep as any we have for any criminal. But draconian speech suppression aimed at adult-to-adult communications? No thanks. I just don't see how that eventually leads to anywhere I would want to live.
- werber 8y ago“conviction to achieve a smoke-free world through socially responsible practices.”...? Why do they even do press? I'm honestly confused by the drug dealer saying they are trying to help the problem
- Freak_NL 8y agoBecause they are feeling the heat brought on by many governments and legislative bodies worldwide, and a huge societal shift towards zero tolerance with regards to smoking. Big tobacco has two ways forward, and they are investing heavily in both. One, focus the sales of tobacco on developing nations, and get them hooked on tobacco to the point of saturation. Those nations will follow the developed nations where smoking is being phased out of society, so they want to increase their presence there now when opposition is minimal in order to reap the profits of that investment for decades to come. Two, migrate from tobacco to e-cigarettes in the developed nations that are trying to prevent uptake of smoking by children, whilst keeping the existing body of addicts hooked to tobacco for as long as possible. Pretending to care is part of that strategy, and makes them look like responsible actors.
- Throwway32 8y agoAny paid influencers promoting the product also must disclose “any relationships between you and entities that create labeling for, advertise, market, and/or promote the products, on your behalf, or at your direction.” It's a pity that social networks don't require this as part of their TOS. There are a number of high profile accounts on Twitter, for example, that seem to leverage their follower counts and blue checkmarks to promote propaganda for the highest bidder (and they have multiple admins on supposed verified individual accounts, churning out said propaganda 24x7). There are creative ways to hide the payments, such as using books authored by the influencers, but that's another discussion.
- mimixco 8y agoThis is the same company that puts cigarette ads on billboards next to schools in third world countries. I would take any suggestion that they want to "reduce youth smoking" with a big heaping spoon of salt.