Grant Details
Grant Number: |
5U54CA229973-03 Interpret this number |
Primary Investigator: |
Strasser, Andrew |
Organization: |
University Of Pennsylvania |
Project Title: |
Examining the Effects of Advertising, Packaging and Labeling on Perceptions, Use and Exposure of Combustible Tobacco Products |
Fiscal Year: |
2020 |
Abstract
SUMMARY
In 2014, the 50th Anniversary Report of the Surgeon General concluded that by far the greatest danger to
public health is from cigarettes and other combustible products, including cigars. Indeed, on the tobacco risk
continuum, combustible products (i.e., cigarettes, cigars) are substantially more dangerous to the user than
non-combustible products (i.e., smokeless tobacco, e-cigarettes). Although use of these products is (or will
likely be) influenced by many factors including taste and consumers' perceived satisfaction, product trial is
undoubtedly conditional on consumers' awareness and perceptions about these products, factors that are
influenced by how these products are marketed, packaged, and labeled, domains that fall under the FDA's
regulatory authority.
As such, the overarching goal of our TCORS is to accumulate a comprehensive and rigorous body of
knowledge on the effects of tobacco communication, including advertising, marketing, packaging and labeling
on regulatory-relevant outcomes of risk perceptions, use, behavior and exposure for combustible tobacco
products, given their disproportional burden on public health.
Together our projects will address research gaps on combustible tobacco products with respect to the impact
of potentially misleading advertising claims, descriptors, labeling and packaging features, where there is limited
and in some cases no empirical data currently available to inform relevant marketing and labeling regulations
for these combusted products to protect public health.
Projects 2 and 4 will examine the influence of marketing exposure to advertisements for combustible tobacco
products, including their images and claims that may suggest reduced/modified risk. Tobacco advertisements
are an important marketing vehicle that allows companies to prominently and creatively feature brand imagery
and benefit claims, including those that might suggest modified risk.
Projects 1 and 3 will examine the influence of marketing descriptors, coloring and warning labels of the tobacco
pack. Tobacco packaging uniquely provides repeated opportunities to express brand image and implicitly
convey brand attractiveness, quality and health appeals to consumers every time the product is used.
Furthermore, as future regulation may move to restrict other marketing forms, the tobacco pack is likely to
remain the “final communication vehicle” between the industry and consumers. All projects will be enhanced by
highly multidisciplinary cores; the center is committed to conducting rigorous tobacco regulatory science.
Publications