Company: Philip Morris International, Lausanne, Switzerland
Company Description: Philip Morris International (PMI) is a leading international tobacco company working to deliver a smoke-free future and evolving its portfolio for the long term to include products outside of the tobacco and nicotine sector. he company’s current product portfolio primarily consists of cigarettes and smoke-free products, including heat-not-burn, vapor and oral nicotine products.
Nomination Category: Thought Leadership Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Thought Leadership Campaign of the Year - Consumer Products
 Nomination Title: Rethinking Disruption, Philip Morris International
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this first question: Specify the date on which this campaign or program was launched:
September 2022
- Which will you submit for this nomination, a video of up to five (5) minutes in length about the nominated campaign or program, OR written answers to the questions for this category? CHOOSE ONE:
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the nominated video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video.
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this second question: Describe the genesis of the nominated campaign or program: the reasons it was initiated, the challenges it was created to address, the problems it was developed to solve, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 243 words used.
Despite decades of stringent tobacco control policies, public health estimates indicate that approximately 1.1 billion people worldwide still smoke, with millions of deaths attributed to smoking-related diseases annually. These same sources predict the number of smokers worldwide will be roughly the same in 2025.
PMI aims to change that. Since 2016, our company has been on a mission to create a smoke-free future by helping smokers make better choices. Their best choice would be to quit tobacco and nicotine consumption altogether. In any given year, however, we know that 9 in 10 adult smokers will not quit. We are working to move these smokers away from cigarettes and toward the better, smoke-free alternatives now available. These innovative products—including heated tobacco, e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches, and snus—don’t burn tobacco. As a result, they have been shown to produce significantly lower average levels of harmful chemicals compared with cigarettes. Although these products are not risk-free and contain nicotine, which is addictive, they are a much better choice for adult smokers than continued cigarette use.
Counterintuitively, despite the public health opportunity presented by these products, many countries still pursue a prohibitive approach that includes regulating them like combustible cigarettes—or even banning them outright. A more sensible regulatory approach that complements traditional tobacco control measures with scientifically substantiated smoke-free alternatives to cigarettes is urgently needed.
PMI’s Rethink Disruption campaign focuses on the human cost of regulatory inaction, which prevents many adult smokers worldwide from accessing smoke-free alternatives.
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this third question: Describe the development of the campaign or program: the planning process, the goal setting, the subject and content development, the scheduling, etc. (up to 250 words):
Total 223 words used.
First, we had our data scientists calculate the potential cost of continued inaction. Using data, estimates, and methods from the World Health Organization and other sources, our hypothetical model showed that if smoke-free products are assumed to be 80% less risky than cigarettes—and if adults who currently smoke were to switch to them completely—then over their lifetime, there’s a potential for a tenfold reduction in smoking-attributable deaths compared with historical tobacco control measures alone. While there are limitations to this kind of hypothetical analysis, this estimate begins to show the real impact of inaction: the human impact.
We presented this data modeling on a dedicated Rethink Disruption landing page, along with case studies from Sweden, Japan, and the U.K. to showcase that, where embraced by regulators and public health authorities, better alternatives to continued smoking are reducing smoking rates faster.
To bring to life this powerful message and urge stakeholders to embrace positive disruption to improve public health, we created compelling content that incorporated speeches, social media, and paid digital and print ads.
The campaign activation centered on two tentpole moments: a headline-generating speech by CEO Jacek Olczak at the UnHerd Club in London to coincide with his participation in the WSJ CEO Council Summit and the other in New York during the week of the 78th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
- If you are providing written answers to the questions for this category, you must answer this fourth question: Outline the activities and concrete results of this campaign or program since the beginning of January 2022. Even if your initiative started before January 2022, limit your response to activities and results since the beginning of January 2022 only (up to 250 words):
Total 250 words used.
Jacek’s speech at UnHerd in May 2023 was livestreamed on LinkedIn, reaching above-average post-event engagement and 32.8K views. With one powerful soundbite—“cigarettes belong in museums”—the speech anchored our corporate narrative and led to positive, global media reach, with 850 earned stories published, including by the AFP and Financial Times. His remarks were also amplified through interviews with the Spectator, Sunday Times, The Mail, The Wall Street Journal, and a fireside chat with WSJ Senior Vice President Phillipa Leighton-Jones in front of 140 influential attendees at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Summit.
Fast forward to September: Our presence at UNGA in New York City did not come without challenges. Days before Jacek was to deliver a keynote address at a third party’s annual conference, we were informed that his invitation was rescinded due to pressure from powerful interest groups. We quickly pivoted our strategy and partnered with Reuters Plus to host a livestream of Jacek’s planned speech on X—a move that enabled his message to go viral. The livestream video has now been viewed more than 1.7 million times—a far bigger audience than we could ever have captured at the event itself.
In the days that followed, we continued to leverage owned, social, and paid channels to communicate the real-world consequences of inaction, including through a four-page insert in the NYC editions of The Wall Street Journal and New York Times.
This campaign has thus far earned 30.4MM impressions through paid media and 548K impressions through social media.
- You have the option to reference here any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 200 words used.
About the campaign:
- A PMI white paper explored the dynamics of positive disruption and its potential to drive meaningful progress on tobacco harm reduction and other critical issues.
- A dedicated Rethinking Disruption landing page highlighted PMI’s embrace of science-based, disruptive innovation and advocated for forward-thinking regulation to deliver a smoke-free future. The site also featured our survey findings and two bylines from PMI CEO Jacek Olczak and Head of External Affairs Grégoire Verdeaux.
·A global press release announced our survey findings, revealing strong societal support for disruptive innovations to drive public health progress.
About us:
- At no other time in its 150-year history has PMI had so much potential to lead the transformation of the tobacco industry and create positive change in the world.
- In 2022, we celebrated eight years of smoke-free innovation at PMI, making strong progress toward our 2030 ambition of becoming a more than two-third majority smoke-free company.
- PMI’s Statement of Purpose speaks to the strides we have made to accelerate the decline of cigarette smoking beyond what traditional tobacco control measures can achieve.
- Innovating for better alternatives is at the core of our strategy. Our smoke-free portfolio includes heat-not-burn, vapor, and oral nicotine products—all without combustion.
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