Because they are feeling the heat brought on by many governments and legislative bodies worldwide, and a huge societal shift towards zero tolerance with regards

Because 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.