It was one of the biggest Australian Public Relations disasters of 2010, the leaking of Big Tobacco’s attempt to halt legislation while ‘hiding’ behind an alliance of retailers.
Now the Alliance’s campaign is being relaunched, and is almost certainly doomed to failure. You can hear more in a report compiled by Hagar Cohen on the ABC’s Background Briefing program which includes an interview with Peter Wilkinson.
The proposed Federal Government legislation will force all cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging. Big Tobacco is fighting to stop this because if the legislation goes ahead, other countries will certainly follow. And it marks the beginning of the end – Citigroup research predicts Australia will stop smoking first in 2030, ahead of the UK (2040) and the US (2046).
First launched in May 2010, the flawed anti-campaign was exposed in August on the ABC’s Lateline which received leaked documents revealing Big Tobacco hired a public relations firm recommending a campaign hidden behind a third party like a retailers association. Less than three months later, we’re told, the Alliance of Australian Retailers was formed on the same day that it received over $5 million from the three biggest tobacco giants. The concealment became the story.
The Alliance’s short-lived campaign was mired by a series of damaging controversies as the media focussed on the messenger, not the message: the leaking of the documents; Big Tobacco’s relationship with the Liberal Party; and the withdrawal from the Alliance by Coles. The campaign crashed shortly after.
There might have been a period when public relations campaigns could fool some of the people all of the time, but it’s long gone. In the new world, step one in any campaign – be trustworthy.
