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Harm from tobacco: a common thread
  1. Sanjay Agrawal
  1. Institute for Lung Health, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Glenfield Hospital, Leicester, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Sanjay Agrawal; sanjay.agrawal{at}uhl-tr.nhs.uk

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Industry uses market segmentation of products to attract and retain consumers from a variety of groups based on demographics, interests, behavioural factors and common needs. This approach is used across many commercial sectors selling a diverse range of commodities including cleaning, beauty, food, automobile and electronic products. Consumers may be attracted to goods based on a number of characteristics including price, packaging, advertising or ease of use. There may also be a perception among consumers that some products are ‘safer’ to use or consume, perhaps based on frequency of use, appearance, marketing and peer influencers.1 The tobacco industry has been adept at using market segmentation across its tobacco range, for example, evoking emotion and identity by differentiating cigars (tobacco wrapped in tobacco leaf, eg celebration, Winston Churchill), pipe tobacco (thicker tobacco strands, eg, concentration, Sherlock Holmes) and cigarettes (fine ground tobacco, eg, relaxation—music and film celebrities).2 Other examples of market segmentation deployed by the tobacco industry include; filters to imply safety3; menthol flavourings to attract young people and specific ethnic groups …

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Footnotes

  • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

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