Friday 18 December 2009

The Mandelsnake notices something.

Plans to sell tobacco products in plain wrapping are on hold for the moment. Mandelsnake has realised something important.

It is understood government ministers will talk about the huge impact the ban would have on the profitability of the tobacco industry, which spends billions of pounds every year developing glossy brands based around colourful designs and distinctive logos.The impact on the tobacco industry is that it will save billions of pounds a year and sell the stuff anyway. We smokers all have our particular favourite brands. We aren't diverted by shiny packets on other brands, we ask for the brand we want and putting them all in plain wrappers under the counter won't affect that one bit. The tobacco industry knows this, which is why they aren't kicking up a big stink.

In fact, the tobacco industry loves this idea. Plain wrappers are cheap and since everyone has to do it, there's no need to spend billions trying to attract smokers of other brands to move.

So what has Mandelson noticed? It's not the tobacco companies who lose out here.

It's the advertising agencies, the brand consultants, the logo designers, all his pals in the City. They stand to lose billions because the tobacco companies will have no further use for their services. Soon, neither will the booze companies or the fast food companies because that plain packaging 'for the cheeldren' is coming their way too.

Unintended consequences. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Meanwhile the smokers, banned from everywhere, forced to look at pictures of pre-pubescent sweet-ravaged teeth, baffled by the claims that smoking makes you impotent and also damages sperm (if it makes you impotent, what would it matter if it damages sperm?) when a whole generation of smoking fathers seemed to manage perfectly well, those smokers, ah, they just keep puffing away.

Increasingly, from packs that aren't in plain wrappers and have more to do with the inside of a suitcase than the underside of a counter.

Tobacco companies don't care. They make the same money no matter where you buy it.

The price difference is all tax.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Anyone still buying cigs from a
UK source needs putting in a plain coffin.
Lets get the government income down
to so called cost to the NHS then
we can call it evens.


Golden Wanderer

500 cancer causing chemicals said...

I didn't realise that cigarette cartons changed design. I thought they kept their designs as they were so well known. Smokers think it's cool smoking marlboro etc while non smokers look on in disbelief. Breathing that shit ? mental man.
Tobacco companies care about highlighting brand image as they need a constant stream of new young smokers to fill the dead smokers boots. Kids need to be directed to a particular brand if the tobacco companies are to get their share of the new fresh lungs.

Leg-iron said...

500CCC

I know what you mean. People spray cans of mysterious chemicals all over their homes because they like the smell. They don't know what's in those sprays. Breathing that shit? mental man.

People who don't like the smell of air 'freshener' should call for them to be banned just because they don't like them, shouldn't they? We can easily make up some harmful effects of synthetic odour chemicals and propellants. Then we can move on to perfumes and aftershaves we can't stand the smell of. Ban anything we don't like because we don't like it and that'll do as a reason.

It's an easy game to play.

As for the tobacco companies, their only competition is other tobacco companies and it costs them to compete. Take away the image competition and they're saving a lot of cash. It's the advertisers who lose money.

Tobacco advertising is banned and has been for some time, yet people still take up smoking. If they want to do it, they will do it.

The alcohol controls will have no effect on rabid boozers. Stricter drink-drive limits will have no effect on those who already ignore the current limits. If they want to do it, they will do it.

Heroin is illegal. Are there no heroin users? Guns are illegal. Are there no shootings? Knives are illegal. Are there no stabbings?

People are going to do these things anyway. When they are banned, all it means is that they do it on the quiet with no regulation and no legal oversight. When guns were legal there was a register of who had what. Now they are illegal, nobody knows who has one.

You don't like smoking. I have no problem with that at all. I don't like driving (which produces a lot more volume of harmful smoke than smoking) but I don't want it banned and I don't go around railing at drivers for polluting 'my' air.

Banning solves nothing. Never has. It gives a visual impression of being in control but in fact, it puts the banned thing completely out of anyone's control. Its only effective use is in demonising a section of population, dividing the population into warring groups who can't ever rebel. That's the only real purpose here.

You don't like it, don't do it. Simple.

It's not like you have to put up with us... anywhere, really.

View from the Solent said...

500cc, to reinforce Leg-iron's point. How many adverts do you see for skag, crack, charlie, mdma, dope etc.? If your argument is substantive, when the current users die, there wouldn't be any new ones. Wanna bet?

Rob said...

"Banning solves nothing."

It solves the need of authoritarian shits to get their rocks off.

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