There are 1.1 billion smokers in the world today. And according to the World Health Organization (WHO), there will still be more than a billion smokers in 2025. Yet millions of smokers around the world are giving up cigarettes and switching to less harmful alternatives.
On April 8, 2019, Philip Morris International (PMI) made a pledge to the world: PMI was going smoke-free. It made a public plea to “smokers, nonsmokers, regulators and agents of change” to help “remove smoke from our world.”
And so it launched an unlikely campaign. Instead of advertising cigarettes, it was promoting a public health message: smoking cessation.
The global campaign called “Unsmoke Your World”, promoting the idea that anyone could become an “Unsmoker”, was released in 2019. Obviously, PMI wanted to be “part of the solution” to smoking. It hired advertising, PR and lobbying companies to promote a narrative of a new purpose-led, responsible business and also to promote its cigarette alternatives to those who are trying to quit.
“The best choice any smoker can make is to quit cigarettes and nicotine altogether,” the Unsmoke campaign says on its website. “It’s time for friends, family and colleagues to come together. To inspire each other. To help each other. Together we can Unsmoke the World.”
Philip Morris International (PMI) executives have a new mission for the company: to phase out cigarettes entirely.
In 2017 PMI officially laid out its vision for a “smoke-free” future announcing the company’s ambition to lead the way toward truly global change.
PMI’s mission is to create a smoke-free future backed by science, technology and innovation to offer less harmful choices to those who would otherwise continue smoking.
The Unsmoke initiative aims to speed up a dramatic positive change in public health. It aims to reinforce the message to smokers that the best choice they can make is to quit cigarettes and nicotine altogether. But it recognizes that many won’t and believes these people should have the opportunity to switch to better alternatives than cigarettes, especially since these do actually exist.
Indeed, the Unsmoke mission is also a marketing campaign for PMI’s new range of cigarette alternatives, as the world’s largest tobacco company is producing smoke-free products that are a better choice for smokers than continued cigarette smoking and can benefit public health.
Smoke-free alternatives have a role to play in public health, believes PMI. "While it’s best to quit cigarettes or never start smoking, smokers who don’t quit have a right to choose better alternatives," they say. And while the Unsmoke campaign does point out tobacco’s health risks, their Unsmoke core message is clear too, which PMI hopes to seed across the world: "If you don’t smoke, don’t start. If you do, quit. If you don’t quit, change, Unsmoke", says the campaign.
To unsmoke is to rid smoke from your life. It unites smokers and nonsmokers who want to unsmoke themselves, family and friends. The best way to unsmoke is to quit cigarettes and nicotine altogether; the next best way is to change to better alternatives.
PMI has devoted time and resources to researching and developing smoke-free alternatives, for those adult smokers who would otherwise continue smoking. "We are clear that the best choice is to quit, but men and women who don’t quit deserve access to, and accurate information about, better alternatives to continued smoking," reads PMI website.
To date, PMI has invested over USD$6 billion in the research, development, manufacturing and commercialization of smoke-free products and dedicated 400+ scientists and engineers to research and development.
"We know if we ceased selling cigarettes, smokers would go elsewhere for their supply. The world's 1.1 billion smokers would continue to smoke," explains PMI on its website. PMI also explains on its corporate website that the Unsmoke campaign aims to open up dialogue and debate around the global public health issue of smoking. "It is an invitation for all interested parties to come together and have a conversation based on the evidence about smoke-free alternatives, rather than relying on misconceptions and misinformation."
To enable people to make an informed choice about the better alternatives that are available to them is the right thing to do, firmly believes PMI who is asking for a unified global conversation to drive real change and unsmoke the world.
