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Florida: where there's smoke

By ROBERT TRIGAUX
Published February 4, 2005

Lucky Tampa. The city is one of just three in the country picked as a test market for a new consumer product.

Too bad, Orlando. Nice try, Miami. This time, it's just Tampa, Atlanta and Salt Lake City.

The trick is, the latest test product happens to be a new cigarette from Philip Morris USA called Marlboro Ultra Smooth. The cigarette will show up in a few weeks, though Philip Morris is being purposefully vague about when, where and how these cigarettes will hit the Tampa market.

Don't look for somebody handing them out on some Saturday night in Ybor City or Channelside, or downtown during the lunch hour. Philip Morris does not offer samples.

A 1998 legal settlement between most of the tobacco industry and states set sharp limits on how tobacco products can be marketed. Philip Morris does not advertise cigarettes on TV, in newspapers or magazines. It does not pitch tobacco on billboards. And it no longer offers clothing adorned with tobacco-related logos.

What Philip Morris will do to market Marlboro Ultra Smooths is to promote the cigarettes in stores where tobacco is sold. And the company will use direct mail to reach adult smokers who have signed up to be notified about tobacco products.

So, why pick Tampa?

"We choose a test market by looking at how well that product category sells there," said Philip Morris spokeswoman Peggy Roberts. "We looked at premium and ultralight categories (of cigarettes) and the overall performance of the Marlboro brand."

Translation: Marlboros sell well here.

Tampa is a favorite location for companies test-marketing their consumer products. It's a growing middle-market crossroads of America, with plenty of folks from the Midwest, Northeast and Middle Atlantic states. Not too rich, not too poor, but certainly transient. Classic America, 2005.

Maybe we should feel kind of special to be picked for a new tobacco product. After all, 26 percent of men and 22 percent of women in Florida are smokers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Georgia boasts similar numbers, just above the national median.

But Utah, home of Salt Lake City, boasts the lowest smoking rates in the country. Just 12 percent of the state's adult population are smokers. That makes Utah the only state in the nation that meets the CDC goal of reducing the U.S. percentage of smoking adults to 12 percent by 2010.

What better city to test the appeal of a new cigarette but in the heart of a city where Mormons discourage smoking with high taxes and tough restaurant smoking bans?

Philip Morris USA, a unit of the Altria Group, is naturally wary when it comes to hyping new cigarettes. Included in the 1998 legal settlement was a provision banning companies from misstating tobacco's health risks.

But this much we know:

Ultra Smooth is the first in the company's most popular Marlboro brand to contain a carbon filter, one originally designed to reduce some of the toxins harmful to smokers. The company says the cigarette will be priced the same as other "premium" Marlboro cigarettes.

In an abundance of caution, Philip Morris sent a letter to the National Association of Attorneys General last month stating its intention to test-market the cigarette. Despite the new filter, no health claims will be made about the cigarettes "because we do not have evidence that the application of these new carbon filters warrants a reduced exposure claim," the letter states. Marketing is being done, the letter adds, "to test the acceptability of the taste of the new brand style among adult smokers."

At least some of the Ultra Smooth packaging will carry this warning: There is no such thing as a safe cigarette, including this one. If you are concerned about the health effects of smoking, you should quit. The warning will appear in a folded brochure called an "onsert" tucked between the cigarette packet and its cellophane covering.

The test marketing of a new Marlboro in Tampa comes on the heels of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's decision to send state lawmakers his recommendation for funding the Florida Tobacco Control Program with a mere $4-million. That's an increase over the current funding of $1-million, but puny compared with the $70-million that once funded the state's teenager antismoking campaign.

Last month, the American Lung Association for the second straight year gave Florida a failing grade for its paltry antitobacco spending.

In Michigan last month, four employees of a health care company were fired for refusing to take a test to determine whether they smoke cigarettes. Bans on smoking continue to grow across the country.

For all the legal pressure on cigarettes, the Marlboro name remains among the most powerful brands in the world. Almost 40 percent of the cigarettes sold in the United States are Marlboros. More than one of every five U.S. adults smoke.

That's a very profitable business Philip Morris isn't about to ignore. Lucky Tampa!

Robert Trigaux can be reached at trigaux@sptimes.com or 727 893-8405.

[Last modified February 4, 2005, 00:18:17]