Philip Morris, the maker of the popular Marlboro cigarettes, launched its "Hold My Light" campaign aimed at urging smokers to instead switch to vaping or other heated tobacco products when they decided to quit cold turkey.
The controversial campaign was officially launched to the public through an advert published on the front page of United Kingdom's newspaper, The Daily Mirror, on Oct 22. The campaign challenges people to quit smoking for 30 days.
The rationale behind the "Hold My Light" campaign was based on a previous study saying that a person who was able to stop smoking for a month would likely be capable of quitting smoking permanently.
The campaign, though it highlights that smoking leads to serious disease and addiction, said smokers can instead replace cigarettes with smoke-free alternatives that are better choices than continuing to smoke.
Philip Morris, which annual profits could reach more than $6 billion, has begun selling e-cigarette and heated tobacco brands such as IQOS, Vivid, and Nicocig. With this, George Butterworth of Cancer Research UK slammed Philip Morris' anti-smoking campaign.
Butterworth said the campaign is a "staggering hypocrisy" since Philip Morris, a company which was ranked 108th on the 2018 Fortune 500 list, is actually promoting products in the United Kingdom that could be used as an alternative to smoking. Worst, the company is still selling and actively promoting its cigarettes products in nations where smoking remains rampant and remains not to be subjected under tougher government restrictions.
Butterworth said the campaign would have been more sincere it stops making cigarettes anywhere. He emphasized that smoking continues to be the leading cause of cancer that could be avoided.
Cancer Research UK maintained that people should quit smoking, including the use of e-cigarettes.
Deborah Arnott, Chief Executive of charity Action on Smoking and Health, also called the move "hypocritical" because Philip Morris is still promoting traditional cigarettes in most countries around the world.
Shirley Cramer, chief executive of the Royal Society for Public Health, shared the same opinion. She particularly questioned Philip Morris' ulterior motives behind the selling good-natured campaign. She said the company continues to aggressively advertise Marlboro in the developing markets where government regulations on smoking are not as tough to that of the United Kingdom. Cramer added that the campaign from Philip Morris actually reached a level of "credulity."
Commenting on the overall negative reaction the campaign has been getting, Mark MacGregor, corporate affairs director in the United Kingdom and Ireland at Philip Morris International, said the company was surprised about the reaction. He said the campaign was originally aimed at helping people stop smoking as fast as possible.
MacGregor said if Philip Morris simply stopped selling cigarettes without offering healthy alternatives, smokers would just switch to their competitor's products and would simply fail to quit smoking.
