Pressure from cigarette maker Philip Morris to develop its heated tobacco

As of 20th May 2020, menthol cigarettes are banned from sale, leaving the tobacco industry and retailers in a period of uncertainty. However, manufacturer PMI is trying to capitalise on this by trying to place its new products, including heated tobacco. Philip Morris has launched a tool to promote its heated tobacco products to retailers. It assesses the impact that the menthol cigarette ban scheduled for 20th May could have on their sales. The tool (a calculator-like tool), launched at menthol-ban-retail.co.uk, uses electronic point-of-sale data from a study of 2,600 stores across the UK that analyses the local spending habits of menthol cigarette smokers. This includes purchases of menthol cigarettes and additional store items purchased during the same transaction. The website states that on average, menthol consumers represent £263 (€300) per week for each retailer in the UK. Retailers are invited to enter their postcode into the calculator to see the potential impact the ban could have on their business over a week, month or year.On the home page of the site, the first message displayed is:Are you ready for the menthol cigarette ban? The menthol cigarette ban only affects menthol cigarettesIQOS and menthol HEETS will still be available for sale.This assumes, and the information is not mentioned, that consumers of menthol cigarettes completely stop their purchases in the outlet, which is not established, especially if they simultaneously consume other non-menthol brands. But this speech and the announced financial threat are intended to exert significant pressure on retailers so that they develop sales of their new products. In doing so, they circumvent the ban on menthol which only concerns traditional manufactured cigarettes and rolling tobacco. The end goal for the manufacturer naturally remains the same: the development of its particularly lucrative profit margins with regard to these new products. To achieve this, it offers different entry points to all its nicotine products, facilitating co-consumption or transfers according to the differentiated regulations that apply to them. What PMI wants is to make the retailer a real prescriber who, when the ban on cigarettes and menthol rolling tobacco comes into force, immediately offers their new product that they want to impose: the IQOS Menthol Kit. This is also a striking example that PMI does not want a world free of tobacco, as the company constantly reminds us. PMI specifies on this site that IQOS is not similar to vaping or traditional cigarettes but that the device is designed to imitate the act of smoking as much as possible.©Tobacco Free Generation

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