There was a small article that flashed across my computer screen that got me to thinking about ethics, expediency and marketing. I will get to that in a minute.
First, I will tell you a 100 percent true story from many years ago when I was finishing up my business studies. I was in a marketing program and one of my classmates was looking for a job like the rest of us.
We were sending out tons of resumes in those days (remember paper?) and anxiously awaiting telephone calls and hoping not to get letters of rejection (remember those?). In any event, I had not seen my classmate for a couple of weeks or so, when she quickly walked up to me beaming and positively giddy.
She told me she had just landed a “big job” with a huge tobacco conglomerate with offices based in New York City. I tried to smile back. I somehow managed to politely ask the question of how she felt about marketing cigarettes.
“Oh, it’s a matter of personal choice,” she answered. “Anyway, there is no proof that smoking is harmful. The medical studies are flawed.”
I want to make it clear that the conversation did not take place in 1935 but many decades later (I’m old, but not that old!).
I shrugged my shoulders and walked away. It is impossible to argue with someone who has just gotten a new job and who has the paycheck blinders firmly in place. Marketing and sales can be like that.
On September 3, 2014, the Associated Press released a news item entitled: “CVS changes name, stops tobacco sales a month early.” According to the article:
“Customers will see a big change when they check out. The cigars and cigarettes that used to fill the shelves behind store cash registers have been replaced with nicotine gum and other products that help people kick the tobacco habit. CVS said earlier this year that it would stop selling tobacco products on Oct. 1 (2014).”
CVS has about 7,700 store locations. They were founded in the early 1960s and grew to be the second largest drug store chain in the United States. Corporate sales are in the neighborhood of $56 billion; about $1 billion of that is due to cigarette sales.
Shift in strategy
CVS, much like its competitors have shifted marketing philosophy to be more health and wellness oriented. For example, many locations have clinics for urgent care. Any money that CVS is giving up in lost cigarette sales will, I am certain, will be made up in clinic visits, nicotine patches and other gadgetry.
However, as I write this I am struck by the fact that the chain waited more than 50 years to stop selling the very product that was bringing people through their doors. Clearly, lung disease, heart disease, circulatory disease, diabetes and cancer are either caused or exacerbated by tobacco. And it’s not that many on their staff were clueless; physicians, physician’s assistants, pharmacists and pharmacy assistants are not ignorant when it comes to the effects of cigarettes. So there is only one conclusion I am able to reach: they didn’t care.
Here’s a what if: a man in his late 70s walks into the urgent care clinic of CVS with difficulty in breathing. He wears a nasal oxygen delivery device and he has a portable oxygen tank. The physician asks him if he was a smoker.
“Yes,” he replies, “for more than 50 years.”
“That’s a long time,” the doctor says. “Why didn’t you quit?”
“Well, I bought them here,” said the patient. “I thought they were safe!”
Yes, the conversation is theoretical, but it points out the hypocrisy of it all. The organization saw that its financial objectives could be better reached by having more of a health focus and eliminating the very products that caused many health problems in the first place.
There is an argument of course, that shoppers would have found other places to buy cigarettes – and that’s true. However, the drug chain knew it had a certain percentage of its customer base hooked on the things. Many of those same customers were gulping down handfuls of medications who had diseases caused by cigarettes in the first place. It was a vicious cycle and they enjoyed the profits until it became expedient to not do so any longer.
Ethically, I find it shameful.