PMI snares Andrea Bocelli for marketing campaign

With a two-day media event in Venice, Philip Morris International launched a collaboration with opera singer Andrea Bocelli. What this collaboration entails remained unclear, but the tobacco manufacturer managed to gain worldwide media attention for its transformation story.

By the web editors

Under the name ‘Believe. Further’ Philip Morris International (PMI) has entered a collaboration with the Italian singer Andrea Bocelli. Together, they aim to create a platform for ‘progress, transformation, and positive change’. “Two voices on a similar path”, reads the advertising poster of which Bocelli shared photos on his Instagram account with 3.9 million followers.

The collaboration was celebrated in a big way with a two-day publicity event in Venice. On the central square Piazza San Marco, Bocelli sang to the press. That press was drummed up and feted by PMI. With success, worldwide attention followed. Also, from popular music magazine Rolling Stone UK, which already has warm ties with Philip Morris, which sponsors the magazine’s Awards. The intention behind the campaign is that PMI gets its marketing story about the transformation to ‘smokeless’ products in the spotlight in all those press articles.

Pop singer turned opera star

On the campaign website there is an extensive video explaining the collaboration: Bocelli was a pop singer, but by believing in a different future for himself, he made the change to that of an opera singer, despite the resistance it evoked. Philip Morris wants to do the same, as PMI’s Europe director Massimo Andolina explains, namely to undergo the change to a company that no longer produces cigarettes, but alternative nicotine products.

Belief in the future

The tobacco company positions itself here as a victim of how the world views them. ‘What do you do when the world has already decided what you are?’ is the starting point of the video. The answer follows at the end: ‘You believe further.’ In the video, Philip Morris tries to show that the company, like Bocelli, has a future dream: that of a future without cigarettes.

Then it is revealed that Philip Morris is an almost visionary company that develops new products to make that dream come true. The resistance from the rest of the world is due to a lack of understanding about the intentions of the cigarette manufacturer and the inability to relate to what he already sees in front of him. The key to all this is ‘belief’, so that PMI, like Bocelli, does not care about the criticism, and continues to realize his dreamed future.

Ordinary marketing campaign

“The ideal situation would be for all current smokers to quit, but that doesn’t happen”, EUNews quotes Andolina, and that’s why ‘alternatives’ come into play. In a press release, Philip Morris explains in so many words that this campaign is indeed an ordinary marketing campaign for ‘alternative nicotine products’ such as heated tobacco, nicotine pouches and vapes. These products now account for 43 percent of the company’s net sales, according to PMI, and are sold in more than 105 markets.

It is not mentioned that smokers have a very difficult time quitting, due to the highly addictive additives that companies such as Philip Morris add to cigarettes, which has made tobacco just as addictive as heroin and cocaine. In the Netherlands, about one in three smokers makes an attempt to quit every year. About ninety percent of them do not succeed. So, the manufacturer comes up with nicotine alternatives that make the consumer believe they are better off.

‘True to your own values’

In that same ‘Believe. Further’ press release, Andrea Bocelli shows that he apparently trusts the tobacco company when it says it wants to achieve a future without a cigarette: “I have always believed in the importance of staying true to one’s values and embracing each step of the journey, learning along the way. We must consider possible even what may seem impossible, when it helps improve lives and advance human progress.”

Bocelli Foundation

Bocelli tries to achieve this progress himself with the Andrea Bocelli Foundation, which has been committed to education, poverty reduction and the support of vulnerable communities since 2011. But what the press release and the video do not mention is that nicotine use is a major problem among young people. The rise of vapes and nicotine pouches, which are being pushed with a lot of aggressive marketing among young people, are causing nicotine addiction among young people to increase again worldwide. Young people who use vapes are three times more likely to smoke cigarettes than non-users.

The costly addiction that follows contributes to poverty and makes communities extra vulnerable by negatively affecting labour productivity through illness and premature death. Precisely the things that Bocelli says he wants to fight.

Intention is commercial

The promotional video is about the intention behind the dream for the future. If it is good, then the dream will come true. But the intent behind PMI’s desire to achieve a ‘smoke-free future’ is purely commercial. The ‘dream’ must ensure that, despite increasing anti-smoking measures around the world, a revenue model remains with which the company mainly secures its own future for a little longer.

Philip Morris has recently been fined in Italy, France, and the Netherlands for making misleading claims about its alternative nicotine products. They are also harmful to health, so claiming that they are better for health is downright misleading.

PMI keeps promoting cigarettes

Meanwhile, there is no evidence whatsoever that PMI is phasing out cigarette production. The manufacturer is selling hardly any fewer cigarettes worldwide and recently launched a new international campaign for its best-known brand. Because yes, there must first be smokers to whom PMI can then sell its beneficial alternatives. In reality, it is more often the other way around: young people who have been lured into the nicotine trap with flavours, colours and lights are the cigarette buyers of the future.

Reputation management

How the ‘Believe. Further’ campaign will be implemented next and what the effective goals of the collaboration are, remains totally unclear. This campaign is therefore a transparent move by Philip Morris to generate media attention and to raise its image to that of Bocelli. It is reputation management at the highest level, but in the meantime just as misleading as the transformation story of the cigarette manufacturer. After all, the facts contradict the belief.