The tobacco industry deliberately targeted teenage smokers in its marketing strategy

Evidence

Subpoenaed memos from R. J. Reynolds describe the need to target young age groups. As one of the memos puts it, “To ensure increased longer term growth for Camel filter, the brand must increase its share penetration among the 14–24 age groups, which have a new set of more liberal values and which represent tomorrow’s cigarette business” (Meier, 1998b). This was not an isolated case, however. Other memos called for more active recruitment of young smokers: “We must get our share of the youth market. We are presently and I think unfairly constrained from directly promoting cigarettes to the youth market” (Memos highlight importance, 1998). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1624

Categorization

• CANDY: The R.J. Reynolds memo admitting they are ‘unfairly constrained’ from promoting to youth is a neat, quotable bit of corporate cynicism.
• XREF: connects to: Cigarette advertising created both a dangerous-product market and a durable oligopoly — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 274