E-Cigarettes Become a Billion Dollar Market

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday February 20, 2014

A year ago I wrote an amusing story about the new way to smoke: electronically! A new form of smoking, called e-cigarettes, was moving from the small ads in the back of the magazines, into the marketing mainstream.

What was surprising was how closely they were being watched - the big cigarette companies were taking an interest - and with them came the potential to invest millions of dollars.

Suddenly - it seems, with the blink of an eye - the world is flooded by an estimated 100 e-cigarette brands, and they are beginning to carve out a niche of market share. In the US they are already selling $US2 billion of the products, and expecting to hit $US10 billion in another three years.

In the UK, British American Tobacco are launching their Vype E-Cigarette promotion on Monday with a sophisticated TV commercial in a campaign that is said to cost "millions". It will be the first time the tobacco company - best known for Dunhill, Lucky Strike and Kent - will have been seen on TV for some 40 years. But not quite seen.

UK law prohibits anything that looks even remotely like a cigarette on the screen. And definitely no satisfaction for the "vaper" (they try to avoid the word "smoker").

So our romantic couple are shot separately, running in slow motion and leaping through a cloud (perhaps suggesting cigarette smoke?) to the line: "Pure satisfaction for smokers - Vype E-Cigarettes. Experience the breakthrough."

Even this much innuendo is being deeply debated by authorities in Britain, with the anti-smoking lobby totally against the campaign. They are claiming that just the mention of these smoking key-words can start the whole "corruption of youngsters" controversy again.

In Australia the tobacco companies could not even go that far. At present, e-cigarettes are in a legal limbo with a ban on their sale. Yet a very steady underground market exists for the products.

They are being reviewed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration - just like drugs, medicines and therapies. The TGA has invested large amounts of time and resources verifying smoking aids like nicotine patches and gum. The government view seems to be that these cigarettes will have to jump the same hurdles before being let loose.

The main problem is the nicotine, which is a scheduled poison. Now most e-cigarettes use vapour perfumes rather than nicotine. But it is also possible to buy the nicotine separately - again, under the counter.

"People purchase stuff on line," said Scott McIntyre of British American Tobacco. "It's been brought in from Asia by cowboys and you don't know what the quality is."

The tobacco firms claim that they could control quantities and quality to protect the consumer. Allison Davis, Philip Morris Corporate Affairs, issued a statement saying: "It is essential that governments establish a rigorous regulatory framework to deal with the broad range of alternatives to cigarettes, including e-cigarettes."

When I wrote my previous story, an old friend with a 40-year, pack a day habit, thought she'd try the gadget out. Now, for the first time in her life, she has not smoked tobacco for almost a year. It may be too late for her emphysema or damaged gums - but at least she has stopped filling her lungs with soot and tar.

A survey of one is not very scientific, but what I saw has convinced me that these e-cigarettes ought to be available to those who want to trial them.

Too old or too qualified?

Melbourne Herald Sun, Thursday February 13, 2014

Can you be overqualified for a job? And if so, what can you do about it?

This is a popular discussion point when you get a number of old friends together. Once they start to loosen up, the stories come out, particularly in the marketing and advertising arenas.

My older friends see it as a simple fact they have to accept: they are too qualified, too old, and therefore unemployable. No matter how far and wide they search, they cannot find suitable work.

What makes this particularly odd is that they are some of the most brilliant minds I know, who have in the past built successful companies or run multi-million dollar accounts. Why wouldn't a company jump at the chance of scooping in all of that knowledge and experience?

Alas too many organisations suffer from the Dwarf Company Syndrome. Think back and you will recall seeing it in most of the places you have worked.

The name comes from a paragraph written by the patron saint of modern marketers, David Ogilvy. Back in the early 60s, the time of the Mad Men, Ogilvy wrote a book called Confessions of an Advertising Man, in which he candidly set out the rules for creating good advertising, and the campaign tactics we still observe today.

His first commandments talked about building an agency: "If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs," warned the pipe-smoking philosopher, "But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants!"

And he did, seeking out people he admired, who could create or manage better than him. And the company became a huge world success.

But that's not the way so many companies think. Too many managers seem to worry that if they hire too well, they could end up losing their job to the newcomer. So if you are looking for work, sometimes you need to play down your superiority.

Pam Kaplan is a freelance copywriter. The fact that she was Creative Director of Badjar Ogilvy for many years, and could run circles round any ad person in town, is not part of her self-promotion. "I don't go in the door and pretend I'm the grand old lady of advertising," she laughs. "What they want to know is, can you come up with the idea?" And she can.

The challenge comes with the digital revolution. Our "digital natives" really do believe anyone born before 1980 is digitally barren.

What they don't take into account is that many of the oldies started with the "hobby" in the mid-eighties, when personal computers became available, so they have had up to 30 years to practice.

And ultimately, the idea really is what matters. All the rest is window dressing. Whether it be a newspaper ad, a TV commercial, a phone app, a Twitter campaign or a streamed YouTube commentary - it has to have that creative spark to make it take off.

It's still the big idea: that will get it posted on a million FaceBook pages or emailed to your sports club or Tweeted far and wide. It's the idea that counts, the rest is technical design to broadcast it.

Fortunately computers haven't developed originality and wit, these are traits we can still keep to us humans. And the more you have been able to invent and practice them, the better your ideas. With time you get to think, and act, like a giant.