BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO INTENSIFIES INDIRECT ADVERTISING

By Seun Akioye

Dominant tobacco manufacturing company in Nigeria, the British American Tobacco Nigeria (BATN) has intensified its Corporate Responsibility campaign with the full page advertorial in the Guardian newspaper of October 15th 2009.

The Corporate Responsibility advertisement published by the British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation (BATNF) featured the various gift presentations to certain section of the tobacco farming community in Nigeria. Such presentations include goats, provision of bore hole and teaching the skills in fish farming.

The advertisement also coincide with an advertorial by the Nigerian Tobacco Control Alliance (NTCA) and Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) published in the Punch newspaper of the same date asking the Senate to fast track the passage of the National Tobacco Control Bill. The advertorial published under the title ‘Tobacco Facts’ is part of a series of enlightenment campaign lecture by the groups. The publication has dealth with various issues regarding tobacco and health in Nigeria

Meanwhile tobacco control community has reacted swiftly condemning the action and calling the publication of the tobacco company as indirect advertisement. The NTCA in a statement condemned the advertorial calling it propaganda. “There are more pressing social issues in Nigeria that BATN foundation can tackle not the feakle corporate social responsibility of providing goats and garri for farmers. This is indirect advertisement and we condemn it in totality. Let them however spend that money in looking for a solution to the various ailments caused by their products.”

Media officer ERA/FoEN, Philip Jakpor also in a statement described the publication of the CSR efforts as shambles. “ This is another way of advertising. It is designed to boost the ego and promote the products of British American Tobacco and the gesture does not in any way reflect the true belief of the tobacco industry. It has been asked and we ask again ‘ can a company that produces a product that kills its users ever be socially responsible? The first thing to do to be socially responsible is to stop the production of lethal products. Before they do that, we are calling for Corporate Accountability.”

Interestingly, advertising and marketing sponsorship of any tobacco products have been banned in Nigeria since 2004.

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Text messaging found to help smokers

REUTERS
October 8, 2009 05:01AMT

Text messaging can help smokers quit the habit, according to an international study.

A review of four trials conducted in New Zealand, Britain and Norway, found that programs to help people stop smoking that included text-messaged advice doubled the chances that smokers would be able to kick the habit for up to a year.

The trials, involving 2,600 smokers, used text messages as a way to give smokers daily advice and encouragement and also offered support when quitters needed it the most.

If they found themselves craving nicotine, for example, they could text "crave" to the program and get immediate advice on what to do.

"We know that stopping smoking can be really difficult and most people take several attempts to quit successfully," researcher Robyn Whittaker from the University of Auckland in New Zealand told Reuters Health.

"It is important to be able to offer lots of different options for extra support."
Two of the studies looked at programs that only involved text messages, finding that the service doubled the odds that smokers would quit over six weeks.

The other two studies focused on a program in Norway that used text messages, emails and a dedicated Web site. It found that smokers who used the program were twice as likely to report abstinence for up to one year.

The findings appeared in the Cochrane Library, a publication of the international research organization the Cochrane Collaboration.

However the studies found the majority of smokers taking part in the studies did not succeed in quitting, regardless of whether they had text-message help.

One of the programs in the study, called Txt2Quit, is running in New Zealand, with government funding, and automatically sends users two to three text messages per day shortly before a designated "quit date," and for one month afterwards.

A recent review of people who took part in the program's first year found that one-third did not smoke four weeks after their quit date. That figure dropped to 16 percent after 22 weeks.

Whittaker said it is estimated that only about 5 percent of smokers are able to kick the habit without any help.

But text messages could serve as one more tool in the smoking-cessation arsenal and may be effective for some people because they can get help when cravings strike.

"The frequent messages can also act as a good reminder and motivation to keep going," Whittaker said.

SOURCE

Health Rish Of Smoking...Death on the increase

'One of the major perenial epidemic confronting mankind is death from tobacco'

'Of the three bilion people who smoke daily worldwide, 250 are women, 22 percent of women live in developed countries and nine per cent of them in developing countries'

Nigeria's smoking habit

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Tobacco kills close to five million people yearly worldwide with over 70 percent of deaths occurring in developing countries including Nigeria where about 12 percent of the population are addicted to nicotine.

Now the Nigerian parliament seems to have responded with a tobacco control bill.

If passed, this could be the biggest tobacco crackdown in the history of Nigeria.

From Lagos, the BBC's Fidelis Mbah, reports.

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