The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: To describe tobacco industry marketing strategies for Potentially Reduced Exposure Products (PREPs) using tobacco industry documents.

Methods: Tobacco industry documents databases (TIDD) are being searched to identify materials that discuss marketing strategies for PREPs. The search focuses on documents written after 1985 and includes documents such as 1) market research reports, 2) advertising campaign planning and briefing documents, 3) strategy and planning documents, and 4) Internal memos and correspondence. Given the scope of the TIDD and the lack of well-indexed terms and keywords, a combination of research strategies including snowball sampling, use of Bates index numbers, searches of multiple sources and maintenance of detailed search logs are being employed.

Results: Numerous materials related to PREPs are available in the TIDD. Over 1,200 documents include the term “harm reduction” and nearly 14,000 the term “safer cigarette”. Marketing research reports and other documents have been unccovered which detail industry strategies and techniques. Project code names have also been uncovered including those used during the development of PREPs marketed to US consumers. Project Sigma and Project Table were used by Phillip Morris when developing Accord and Project Spa by RJ Reynolds when developing Premier.

Conclusions: A wealth of information is available in the TIDD but locating the information is time consuming and requires special expertise. Using project code names and names of project personnel, and keeping detailed search records can assist in locating documents. The information uncovered details the PREPs related goals and strategies of the tobacco industry and may assist counter-messaging efforts.