Tobacco industry-sponsored bar promotions – 10/22/12

Q: We’re considering doing a study examining tobacco-specific bar promotions and would like to send college student monitors to bars around campuses to detail the events. We’re struggling with trying to determine when the bar promotions will be happening. Does the tobacco industry advertise these events anywhere? How can we find out when and where the promotions are occurring in a specific city?

A:

1. California: As far as we know, the tobacco industry (TI) does not actively promote when and where they will be hosting their bar night events. Thus, most of their efforts at bars are fairly difficult to follow. We do know that the TI does go to bars on a regular basis.  In 2008, the tobacco industry spent 14.3 million on public entertainment in adult-only facilities, such as bars and concerts. In 2009, they spent 22.3 million and in 2010, 32.4 million.
    
   In addition, as a result of a lawsuit between the Office of the Attorney General of California (AG) and Philip Morris (PM), the AG’s office receives a weekly list of some of the Philip Morris events that take place in the major metropolitan areas in California (San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, and Sacramento). However, we know that PM sponsors many additional bar night events not included on this list. We have found tracking R.J. Reynolds’ events to be fairly impossible, but some of our funded projects have reported that “Camel is everywhere.”
    
   Our experience in California has shown that the TI seems to be more likely in bars on weekends, specifically Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.  They like bars that have outdoor smoking patios and/or are willing to sell tobacco products. They also like bars that cater to a younger, college-aged crowd as well as bars popular among the LGBT population.  We definitely recommend working with college students and also suggest reaching out to sororities and fraternities. Some sororities and fraternities host private TI-sponsored parties (e.g. casino nights) where free samples of cigars and smokeless tobacco are often distributed.
    
2. Oregon: In Oregon, we learned that most of the promotion of these events happens via social media and phone texting.  Tracking local bars and tobacco companies on Facebook and Twitter is a key way to see what kind of promotions and events are taking place. Additionally, signing up on tobacco company websites so they can text event information is another way to get details. And, sometimes it just takes going into the bar and checking out their restrooms or wall space for promotional brochures and posters.
    
3. Washington: It turns out that our tobacco sampling ban results in more difficulty determining when and where tobacco companies will be doing promotions. We used to get a list of sampling events as required by law. Now that they don’t sample, they are not required to tell us where they plan to go to hand out coupons.
    
4. West Virginia: We are not aware of any specific tobacco industry advertising of bar promotions in a specific college/university city in West Virginia.

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Other Responses:

1. Network for LGBT Health Equity: I worked in the bar industry for a large number of years, while working in tobacco control as well. Having run two different bar campaigns, we found that it was difficult to know when the industry would show up to bars. We would deploy our students to the main establishments that we knew they would frequent on busy bar nights. For instance, 4440, a club in Sacramento, had their busiest night on Saturdays and it was almost guaranteed that they would show up on that night. During one of our meetings with the students we asked them to ask their friends about where they have seen bar promotions taking place, and on one of the surveys we conducted on the school campuses we have asked if they have seen bar promotions and the bar they were at.
    
   Workers at nightclubs that take industry sponsorship learn when the industry is going be at the establishment most of the times, and it’s possible to find out when they are going to be at other venues by making friends with the promotions manager. Making some allies with the bars that are accepting sponsorship or maybe even staff might be a way to get some information.
    
   Also, there is a great commentary article, available online here, that was published in Nicotine & Tobacco Research in July 2011, with Joseph Lee as a co-author. While specific to LGBT communities, it’s a great resource.
    
2. Rescue Social Change Group: We have worked a lot in bars and clubs and currently have eight active counter marketing campaigns in bars and clubs for tobacco prevention and cessation. However, we don’t have a specific source for tobacco industry bar nights. When we do know about them, it is just through our bar relationships. So the best advice we could provide is to find monitors who are well connected in the bar and club industry and are able to connect with managers, bartenders or even owners who have this information.
    
3. Tobacco Control Legal Consortium: Dr. Pamela Ling has done a lot of work related to cessation interventions in the bar environment and she may have good information to offer about what the industry is doing in that same environment and how it operates. More information about her work can be found here.

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