In this paper, we share background on the ‘Big Tobacco, Tiny Targets’ campaign, three short case studies from countries where the campaign had a substantial policy impact, keys to campaign success and campaign challenges. The campaign—which demonstrated that the world’s biggest tobacco companies are targeting the world’s youth with tobacco marketing and advertising—can be adapted by others in their tobacco control policy campaigns.
The point-of-sale (POS), places where consumer goods are sold, is an important platform for marketing tobacco. Greater exposure to tobacco advertising and promotion at POS is associated with a greater likelihood of smoking among youth.1 2 In the USA, POS that adolescents visit regularly display more tobacco advertising than POS in the same community that are less popular with youth.3
In 2015, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (Tobacco-Free Kids), a US-based non-profit advocacy organisation focused on reducing tobacco use globally, collaborated with civil society organisations in Indonesia to monitor cigarette advertising and promotional tactics at POS near schools and playgrounds. When monitoring revealed concerning patterns of cigarette marketing targeting children and youth, Tobacco-Free Kids partnered with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (BSPH) and civil society organisations in other countries to observe tobacco marketing tactics, focusing on low- and middle-income countries.
Public health professionals and volunteers, with support from Tobacco-Free Kids, the Africa Tobacco Control Alliance and BSPH, have systematically collected data on cigarette advertising and promotional tactics at POS near primary and secondary schools and playgrounds in 42 countries since 2015. Four advertising and promotional tactics have been observed at POS in most countries: (1) display of cigarettes near snacks, sweets or sugary drinks, (2) placement of cigarette advertisements near the eye-level of children, (3) product display and advertisements for flavoured cigarettes and (4) sale of single cigarette sticks.4 These strategies were …