NIS 3 Million Was Spent on Marketing Smoking To The Hareidi Population

ISRAEL (VINnews) — Philip Morris, the master of tobacco, must have realized that the Hareidi smoking rate is one of the lowest in the country and decided to change that fact, although he clearly stated in the past that he only targets existing smokers.
According to research done by Hebrew University, Morris has spent almost NIS 3 million in the past 4 years targeting the Hareidi public using the printing press to do this. Morris also used QR codes in his ads and had double-page ads, which are considered one, in order to bypass the fact that one tobacco advertisement is allowed per newspaper.
This is an interesting fact since the Haredi community is not known to be smokers and according to Dr. Yael Bar-Zeev, one of the report’s researchers, it was a surprise that the strong focus was on a population that hardly smokes as a pose to men in the Arab sector who have the highest smoking rate.
As a response, Philip Morris said on the Kan public broadcast: “We operate according to the law and in line with the strictest regulation. The company advertises in accordance with Israeli law… and even reports to the Health Ministry as is required by law.”
According to the Hebrew University, enforcing a law that prohibits tobacco-related advertisements is the only way to put a stop to a situation in which marketing is used to raise a new generation of smokers.
The company stated that it does not wish to recruit new smokers, and that it encourages existing smokers to use the company’s e-cigarette. “Thanks to the determination and persistence of hundreds of scientists, engineers, and technicians, and an investment of more than nine billion dollars in science-based innovation, we are on the right track to realizing this vision. Today, close to 19 million adult smokers worldwide use the groundbreaking, smoke-free products we developed. The vast majority of those people (13.5 million) completely stopped smoking cigarettes,” the company said.