A study on the sponsorship tactics of transnational tobacco companies in Korea: Review and analysis of tobacco industry internal documents

Abstract

Objectives: In this study, it was analyzed which marketing activity strategy multinational tobacco companies established against Republic of Korea through their internal documents and it was checked out how the marketing activities mentioned in the documents turned out to be actually. Methods: For that, analyzed the internal documents of tobacco companies after connecting Legacy Tobacco Documents Library(LTDL). Three documents were selected finally out of total searched 1,752 documents except the ones that did not include the theme or not appropriate. Results: Internal documents analysis showed that people smoke because the filter of cigarette shown in the movies looks nice. Tobacco companies carried out the marketing through sponsorship of soccer games, F1 Grand Prix was found in the internal documents. Conclusions: The legal restriction on marketing activities of tobacco companies should be enhanced by removing the articles of allowing advertisement and promotion for tobacco companies in Korean domestic law.