Marketing Strategies of Tobacco Companies under the Branding Ban Rule in Emerging Markets

This work represents an attempt to identify the most efficient ways to provide promotion of cigarette brands under the legislative limitations on branding cigarette packages , which were recently introduced in several countries and are now discussed in some developing markets. In order to operate successfully in different countries multinational corporations should develop a right marketing strategy, considering political, economic, legal and cultural aspects of these markets. With the introduction of new limitations international tobacco companies have to adapt their marketing activities in accordance with the law. It is hypothesized that in case of branding ban tobacco producers would mostly focus on trade marketing instruments, namely pricing and assortment policies, to compensate the harmful effect of plain packaging. It is anticipated that, with high probability, efficiency of advertising campaigns under the "branding ban" rules depends on the appropriate pricing strategy, as the only instrument of communication with customers. In this paper we analyze the international tobacco market and the reaction of tobacco manufacturers on the evolution of anti-tobacco campaigns all over the world. As the result of the research it is planned to elaborate recommendations for a tobacco company operating in a developing market in case of imposition of standardized cigarette packaging, on the example of JTI Russia. Statistical methods and ABC-analysis are applied for estimation of the level of influence that particular indicators have on the company's share of market. Theoretical aspects of international marketing are enlightened in the works of Kotler, Poturak, Bagiev, Keegan. The analysis is based on data provided by Nielsen, Ipsos, Euromonitor International.