The Dark Side of Marketing Research

Marketing has always had a dark side or questionable ethics when it comes to get the attention of the public for their own profit. I am going to give you one of the many great cases where marketing played a big role in saving a mayor industry: The tobacco industry.
The next article talks about the tobacco industry during the 60's thru the 80's and their efforts to stay in "power".
During the introduction of low yield cigarettes, manufacturers were concerned that consumers may become weaned from smoking. These manufactures employed tactics to lead consumers to perceive filtered and low yield brands were safer relative to other brands. This tactics included using cosmetics filters, using medical menthol, generating misleading data on tar and nicotine, etc. "Advertisements of filtered and low tar cigarettes were intended to assure smokers concerned about the health risks of smoking and to present respective products as an alternative to quitting. Corporate documents demonstrate that cigarettes brands described as "light or "ultra-light" because of low machine measured yields"(tobaccocontrol.bmj.com).
 The advertising spending for new low yield products from 1976 to 1978 was awesome and commanded a very disproportionate share of the firms' total advertising budgets—share-of-voice (SOV). Contemporary advertising trade accounts described this promotional flurry as “a numbers game that boggles the mind while promising to relieve the lungs” New brands and product line extensions (variations of familiar brands) were introduced with major budgets as shown in the box below.

“The phenomenal growth of hi-fi brands is, in part, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hi-fi expenditures have grown from 7% SOV in 1972 to 45% in 1977, much faster than actual segment growth”.⁶²“[T]he low tar revolution [of 1976ff] is not ignited by a particular event, such as a Reader's Digest article, a Surgeon General's Report, etc.; it happens quietly based on technologically improved products and consumers' desire for a reasonable compromise and the industry's massive advertising support leading category development”(The dark side of marketing seemingly Light cigarettes: successful images and failed fact, R.W Pollay, T. Dewhirst)..