Responsible Marketing
Our companies' marketing approaches are guided by our Vision of Moving Beyond Smoking®.
There are 55 million U.S. adult nicotine consumers 21+ today, and more than ever they’re seeking smoke-free options that fit their lifestyles. We’re here to meet that demand, making a meaningful impact in harm reduction while delivering products people love.
Our companies focus their marketing efforts on adult nicotine consumers 21+ and take steps to limit reach to underage audiences. We do not want anyone under the age of 21 to use any of our companies’ products. And as we seek to transition adult smokers to a smoke-free future, the bar is even higher for our companies’ combustible product marketing. We have additional guardrails in place to restrict combustible brand marketing to adults 21+ who are currently using combustible products, while providing smoke-free product and brand offerings to encourage them to switch.
The cornerstone of our approach to marketing responsibly is our Code of Conduct (Code) and our compliance with all legal, regulatory and internal policy requirements. We work hard to instill a culture of responsibility throughout our marketing and sales organizations and with our business partners.
Marketing programs vary among our tobacco companies and their products/brands. But the focus remains the same – to responsibly grow market share by enhancing brand awareness, earning consumer love and loyalty, and advancing our Vision and Enterprise Goals.
Altria’s tobacco operating companies' marketing is intended to appeal to adult nicotine consumers (ANC) 21+, an audience that is broad-based and multicultural. For our tobacco operating companies to understand ANC21+ preferences and market their products effectively to the evolving ANC21+ population, our companies will conduct consumer research, including among specific ethnic or cultural segments.
Marketing Practices
- Connecting with our Consumers
- Tobacco Settlement Agreements
- Marketing Policies
Our tobacco operating companies’ brand teams develop marketing plans that use a variety of activities, tools and channels to engage with adult nicotine consumers 21+ while taking steps to limit reach to underage audiences. For example, they leverage our substantial database of age-verified adult nicotine consumers, work with retailers to merchandise tobacco products responsibly, align with requirements of the Master Settlement Agreement and FDA, deny product placement requests for movies, television shows and video games, and more.
Product-branded Websites and Age Verification
Our companies use product-branded websites to communicate with adult nicotine consumers 21+. Consumers must be 21 years of age or older to purchase products on an owned e-commerce website or to access product-branded marketing materials. Our companies require consumers to verify their age through an electronic age verification process and confirm that they are adult nicotine consumers 21+ prior to gaining access to their product-branded websites.
Electronic age-verification checks the personal information provided by an individual against public-records databases and third-party data sources to verify the personal information. If the records confirm the individual’s age, they gain access to the website. If not, access to the product-branded marketing sections of the website is denied.
Electronic Age Verification Process Validation
In 2024, our quarterly audits of the third-party age-verification process reflected a 100 percent effectiveness rate in screening out persons under the minimum legal age from accessing our companies' product-branded tobacco websites.
To further prevent underage persons from accessing our product-branded websites, our websites are compatible with age-filtering software. Such software can be used to block access to websites considered unsuitable for children.
In addition, the product-branded websites are designed to comply with all laws involving the sale and delivery of tobacco products. Our companies carefully consider responsible marketing practices as they venture into third-party e-commerce partnerships for our innovative, smoke-free nicotine products. As those partnerships continue to evolve, they’re exploring how best to codify our responsibility expectations and monitor adherence to our contractual responsible marketing practices.
Traditional Media
If our tobacco companies market their products in digital or print newspapers, magazines, or periodicals, they are careful to pick those publications that meet the criteria of an "adult publication" under the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) proposed definition. Under this standard, an adult publication is one:
- whose readers younger than 21 years of age constitute 15 percent or less of the total readership as measured by competent and reliable survey evidence; and
- that is read by fewer than two million persons younger than 21 years of age as measured by competent and reliable survey evidence.
Paid Media Advertising
Some of our operating companies’ smoke-free brands leverage paid digital media advertising to reach adult nicotine consumers 21+. These advertisements are carefully monitored to ensure they’re delivered to the intended audience.
To ensure this, our operating companies use the following strategies for paid digital media advertising:
- They leverage first- and/or second-party consumer data to precisely match advertisements to recipients to assure they are only seen by the intended audience.
- Advertisements are placed programmatically on select websites using an "allow list" methodology. The allow list approach, combined with content specific filtering, ensures advertisements are not placed on channels or sites whose content falls outside of our guidelines related to youth appeal and brand suitability.
Social Media
Social media has become a powerful channel for companies to stay connected to their consumers. We’re committed to keeping our adult nicotine consumers 21+ at the center of everything we do. As social media continues to shift how people communicate across the world and communications channels evolve, we’ll consider the implications for how we responsibly engage with our adult nicotine consumers 21+ while limiting reach to underage audiences.
In 2009, the Food and Drug Administration began regulating tobacco products against the backdrop of the 1998 Tobacco Settlement Agreements, which fundamentally changed how companies market cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products in the United States. These agreements banned or heavily restricted a wide range of marketing practices.
They include a variety of restrictions on the sale and marketing of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, including prohibiting:
- use of cartoons in advertising, promotion, packaging or labeling of tobacco products;
- most outdoor advertising, including billboards and stadium ads;
- most transit ads;
- paid product placement;
- certain brand-name sponsorships; and
- distribution of merchandise with cigarette or smokeless tobacco brand names and logos.
The nation's leading cigarette manufacturers, including Philip Morris USA, entered into the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) with the attorneys general of 46 states, five U.S. territories and the District of Columbia. Prior to entering into the MSA, PM USA and several other cigarette companies already had reached similar agreements with Florida, Minnesota, Mississippi and Texas. These agreements are collectively referred to as the tobacco settlement agreements.
The U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company is the only smokeless tobacco manufacturer to sign the Smokeless Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement with the attorneys general of 45 states.
Enforcement Actions
In 2024, there were zero marketing-related Master Settlement Agreement enforcement actions for Philip Morris USA and U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company against a target of zero.
| Enforcement Actions | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Master Settlement Agreement marketing-related enforcement actions for Philip Morris USA | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Smokeless Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement marketing-related enforcement actions for U.S. Smokeless Tobacco | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Our Code establishes the basic compliance principles for our businesses in several key areas, including marketing responsibly. Specific advertising and communication policies guide the daily activities of our employees who have responsibilities for how our tobacco companies market their products to adult nicotine consumers 21+.
We develop, review and approve consumer advertising materials through a step-by-step compliance review process. This process includes controls to identify business or legal issues before the materials are produced. To support this goal, employees must:
- create marketing materials and programs that comply with all legal requirements, our Code, policies, practices and commitments;
- hold advertising agencies and marketing consultants to these standards;
- never make misrepresentations about our companies' products, including the health effects of those products;
- substantiate all claims about our companies' products before making any claims; and
- never market our companies' products to youth/underage persons.
Compliance
Each fall, Altria’s Corporate Audit department (CAD) conducts a detailed risk assessment process to determine how to prioritize Audit resources for the coming year. High-risk areas are audited on a three-year schedule; whereas medium-risk areas are audited every six years. Audits are scoped using a risk-based approach and may focus on any number of issues such as marketing policy non-compliance or data security risks, depending on the greatest risks identified.
CAD establishes an annual audit plan based on a risk assessment process designed to identify auditable risk across the Enterprise. CAD reports the results of each audit conducted to senior management and periodically provides audit plan updates to Altria’s Audit Committee. Over the past three years, CAD conducted 31 audits that touched marketing compliance risk areas including: underage access prevention, adult nicotine consumer database and direct marketing, retail and consumer engagement, digital consumer engagement, third-party retail and merchandising, and ecommerce.
In support of their expanding portfolio of products, our companies continuously evolve their marketing policies and audit plan based on new identified risks, as the ways we interact with consumers continue to evolve.
