VICE and Philip Morris: Partners in Crime
Philip Morris continues its century-long campaign of deception with the help of Vice Media
Disclosure: I’m a former documentary filmmaker now specializing in the uses of Virtual Reality in Architecture. I do forensic consultation and write in my spare time. I don’t smoke.
Kelly*, a member of the Vice / PMI partnership, reached out to me in a crisis of conscience. I have been highly critical of their partnership in the past and they wanted to vent anonymously.
*NOT THEIR REAL NAME. VICE & PHILIP MORRIS: WILL YOU RELEASE ALL INVOLVED FROM THEIR SECRECY AGREEMENTS?
Kelly signed to “do good with bad money”. Believable-ish. On one hand, Vice is part owned by Disney, hundreds of employees recently unionized and has produced Peabody award-winning content in partnership with HBO. On the other hand, Vice Media has no published code of ethics and no fact-checking process which leads to reality TV with a documentary aesthetic. Regardless, Kelly is stuck.
The non-disclosure agreements people were asked to sign seemed normal. As details of the partnership emerged the NDAs turned out to be more of a trojan horse. In hindsight, they were totally unconscionable — an evolutionary step in mind-fuckery. As explained to me: any sense of “doing good with bad money” was “rife with conflict of interest and huge motive for fraud”. “[Vice] is acting as an extension of [Philip Morris International] masquerading as a social impact initiative that will attempt to get millions of people across the globe hooked on a new product”.
Any real criticism of Philip Morris was being stifled by upper management. Heath experts: effectively blacklisted. Negative studies about PMI products: don’t talk about them. Vice was going to prostitute its name for “nine figures”. (Financial Times reporting earlier today a “£5m sponsored content deal to promote ecigarettes”)
A Partnership Shrouded in Secrecy
Vice’s partnership with PMI first became public when a deal to do ‘white label content’ got leaked to the Financial Times. At the time, pesky moralists, like the President of Tobacco Free Kids, asked that Vice end its current relationship. Vice remained defiant and pointed the finger at Edition Worldwide (a spin-off of Vice UK, run out of the Vice UK office, directed by Vice management, “[Shane Emerson Smith] holds, directly or indirectly, 75% or more of the voting rights”). Vice and PMI have now been together for three years.
With three years and no public outcry, a hubris formed. Kelly explained this relationship to me in detail. Vice was making a series of short ads disguised as documentaries and unlike before would be VICE branded — logo and all — which was to be released early 2019. The plan was to remain silent to critics and weather the backlash.
As the PMI documentary deadline grew closer, the company faced massive layoffs and a scandal wherein the Executive Chairman Shane Smith was reported to have been yachting with brutal and oppressive Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. ‘VICE Presents: Bone Saws & Bone Cancer’ would be too much bad press in one month.
An Untenable Grift
Kelly speculates that Vice’s reputation has become so toxic that Philip Morris became concerned about blowback. Vice is short on the social capital needed to sell the ‘do good with bad money’ line.
Vice, of course, was not doing good with bad money. Editorial restrictions on the PMI funded videos came in all forms:
- Selecting which story pitches are OK
- “They don’t want journalists [to appear on camera]. Journalists ask questions.”
- Blacklisting / removal of doctors, specialists and experts critical to PMI
- Vetted, softball questions for PMI’s CEO André Calantzopoulos
If and when Vice releases the next documentary they will try to convince its audience companies switch between branded and funded content all the time but “its all a big lie to deceive the public into supporting [PMI]’s goal”. Something more pernicious than an ad, Vice is effectively willing to act as a Big Tobacco lobbyist.
Everyone in the partnership has signed secrecy agreements. Even subjects are asked to sign them (but not all of them have). “What they’re hiding is the transparency. The lie is that the funder has given up their rights and they haven’t”
Kelly, over several days, described the internal tensions between management and the filmmakers. Vice filmmakers, trying to subvert their masters, but ultimately stifled by those in control.
VICE: The Big Tobacco Lobbyist
What Vice is trying to do is immoral everywhere but plainly illegal in several countries. The tobacco industry is banned from advertising in over a hundred countries. Vice’s new initiative is called “Change Incorporated” (which happens to be quite difficult to Google). Their leaked internal pitch video says they are “partnering with companies at the heart of the world’s biggest issues […] to achieve real, measurable change”.
Since PMI is generally considered a criminal organization it needs Vice to get people to appear on camera. Vice is providing name [at] vice [dot] com emails for staff to communicate with documentary subjects. Kelly explained the deception of getting crew and subjects “[t]he company line was not to tell them until after either interviewing a subject or talking to potential staff etc. Selling the ‘we take money and use it for good’ line”.
Bullsh*t Buddies
Vice’s corrupt editorial pipeline has been around for years. Vice has no published code of ethics which means staff have no way to push back on advertisers’ conflict of interest. In 2015, one of Vice’s media kits revealed that brands could purchase and editorial for $28,750 and tweets for $6,900. Later, Vice quietly pulled the media kit but continued pimping themselves with a mix of overt and covert advertorials.
Three months ago, Altria, (the parent company of Philip Morris USA and PMI’s distributor in the USA) discontinued Verve, a Nicotine lozenge similar Nicorette and acquired a 35% stake in Juul the leading vape pen. This signified their commitment to a new and subversive nicotine-cancer pipeline:
- Stage 1: get kids hooked on vaping.
- Stage 2: “nico-teens” become smokers.
- Stage 3: cancer: fight the pain with PMI cannabis.
In 2015, the startup DAX Technologies developed an easily-concealed USB-key shaped vape pen called the Juul (pronounced ‘jewel’). The design was a departure from early e-cigs and aimed at young smokers.
I first noticed e-cigarettes in 2012 and they pretty much looked like cigarettes. I dropped a hundred bucks on a cigalike e-cigarette for a friend — the “V2” which had a LED at the end that lit up whenever you took a puff. In 2018 Juul purchased them — then discontinued the product.
Juul claims they have always targeted current smokers but insiders tell a different story. A senior manager told the NYTimes they were well aware it could appeal to teens (no shit). In July and August 2015 Juul exclusively ran print ads in Vice Magazine. Two-page spreads (the most expensive ad placements available) of fashionable millennial in front of colourful backgrounds. The models ‘were at least 21’ but dressed like actors in a teen drama. Juul gave its early marketing dollars to a company that endlessly hypes itself as a “youth media company”.
Juul’s nicotine-salts contraption delivers the dizzying drug to brains at the rate of a typical cigarette. Studies have shown that it primes the brain and increases the odds of smoking four to six times.
Juul is banned in the EU and began to worry that the US might impose similar restrictions so last year Juul spent $890,000 on lobbying the US government (aka: paying sad people to convince the government of things). The Food and Drug Administration told Juul they had 60 days to change their act then two weeks later seized documents from their HQ.
With a ban looming, Juul deleted its official social media posts. But will they repeat their strategy elsewhere in the world? In America:
- Juul’s R&D engineer told Verge “We don’t think a lot about addiction here because we’re not trying to design a cessation product at all” (oops)
- Juul paid social media influences with youth followings about $1000 a pop to post positively about their brand.
- Juul paid for the creation of a rooftop “slumber party” in LA that showed movies like: Can’t Hardly Wait, SCREAM, and Cruel Intentions. (Stanford Tobacco Archive)
- Juul offered schools 10–20k to let Juul representatives deliver anti-vaping slideshows. (Anti-smoking campaigns like these are known to be ineffective and actually promote smoking. When you tell kids not to do something and only adults are allowed it has the opposite effect of prevention).Yes, Bizarre.
- After the FDA seized documents Juul hired the White House communications director who worked with Jared, Ivanka and Cohen and all have great things to say about him.
“Smoke Free”
I’m Canadian. Prior to starting this article, I had never seen or heard of the iQOS. Which makes sense, it’s a stupid device for stupid people. Sorry.
My government labeled iQOS what it is — “NOT A SAFE ALTERNATIVE TO CIGARETTES”. Thanks to the nanny state I live in, anything cigarette-related can’t be advertised. iQOS stores, that I’ve blissfully passed several times, don’t have signage. One store tried but it received a warnings and threats of jail time for non-compliance.
If you’re already convinced iQOS, unofficially called “I Quit Ordinary Smoking”, is a turd sandwich, save yourself 10 minutes and quit reading this article. Seriously.
If you’re morbidly curious; helplessly naive or maybe you work for Philip Morris legal team well…
History Repeats
Philip Morris International says it’s putting 40% of its marketing budget into iQOS and says it want to eventually phase out cigarettes. This is marketing spin. iQOS ‘Heetsticks” come in mini cigarette packs, are cigarette shaped and are made with tobacco. Reducing the smoldering temperature to 350°C (660°F) isn’t new: hookah heats tobacco to 160°C and it’s just as harmful, if not more harmful than a cigarette. Put simply, Philip Morris has found a cheaper way to make a cigarette.
The concept of smoldering a cigarette at a lower temperature isn’t even new. In the late 90s PMI developed ‘The Accord’ (not the car), a “reduced risk product” where “smoke is reduced by about 90%”. The Accord, and its cousin the ‘Heat Bar’ were both abysmal failures.
The Accord had 400 milligrams of tobacco, the HEET cigarette has just 201.5 milligrams in the UK (310 milligrams of reconstituted tobacco in Canada). PMI is cutting down on raw materials to increase profit.
Bad Science
The main iQOS pitch is a reduction of “harmful and potentially harmful chemicals” by “90–95%” with diagrams suggesting there is proportional reduction in harm. This is an incredibly sneaky for two main reasons.
- Smart people have been caught thinking smoking less tobacco reduces harm proportionally — it doesn’t. A 1978 study in JAMA re-introduced the idea of “tolerable” amounts of smoking: making the false assumption that the risk of dying from smoking decreased in exact proportion to the decrease in toxic agents. The mistake became a “gift from heaven for the industry”.
- PMI compared the iQOS cigarette to a reference cigarette smoked using the ‘Canadian Intense’ regimen. The Canadian Intense regimen was developed because ventilation holes introduced in the 70s helped cheat puffing machines and defraud government testers. Typically cigarette companies like using the non-Canadian standard (the ISO regimen), but of course, in this case, they use the test puts the numbers in their favor.
Some other reasons: Korean government rejected iQOS, PMI sued and are now having to fight said lawsuit; Independent testers have shown increased liver damage compared to standard cigarettes; PMI compared levels for only 40 of 93 harmful and potentially harmful constituents the ones left out were higher. (NOTE TO READER: include more?)
“Smoke Free” When Exactly?
What do you call an honest tobacco executive? Fired (+threatened).
André Calantzopoulos, like all of Philip Morris CEOs before him, is in the business of doling out empty words. When asked when Philip Morris will phase out cigarettes his answer was out of this world (wait for it).
Philip Morris CEOs promising to stop cigarettes since 1954:
“[I]f we had any thought or knowledge that in any way we were selling a product harmful to consumers, we would stop business tomorrow.” — George Weissman 1954
“[I]f any ingredient in cigarette smoke is identified as being injuries to human health we are confident that we can eliminate that ingredient” — Joe Cullman 1971
”Shut it [the manufacturing plant] down instantly” Geoffrey Bible 1997 (when asked what he would do if scientists proved cigarettes were a cause of lung cancer)
“We at Philip Morris are extremely focused on quitting the cigarette business” When? “I don’t have extraterrestrial powers to give that answer” — André Calantzopoulos 2018
“Wangaa-wangaa” — Worm
A Chronology of VICE and PMI
Vice (Edition Worldwide) and Philip Morris International have been tight-lipped about their partnership but details can be found across a half-dozen industry websites (LinkedIn, Mandy, TheTalentManager etc.). I was able to create a timeline of who worked on PMI projects when and cross-referenced with videos that PMI has released. Some people gave rough descriptions of the iQOS videos, some mentioned lengths, others used coded language (‘RRP’, ‘large international company’). Most didn’t identify as having worked for Edition Worldwide instead saying Vice or Virtue . Although it’s tempting, I won’t name-and-shame everyone but I have archived everything for posterity.
Cigarette Videos
The partnership between Vice and Philip Morris was first reported March 2016 but the story goes further back.
- 2008 Vice made anti-smoking ads for Truth Initiative. Creatives Eddy Moretti and Derrick Beckles partnered with agency Arnold and Crispin Porter & Bogusky to create the videos. (After news broke, Bogusky told FastCompany that Vice was “Pathetic”, Truth CEO called the partnership “disappointing”). Watch: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
- Feb 2014 VICE on HBO “Addiction” (Season 1, Ep. 7) Fist segment “Tobaccoland”, Shane Smith sends correspondent Thomas Morton (a smoker) “to Indonesia to see what happens to a country that refuses to regulate its tobacco”. Multiple scenes show pre-teens smoking Sampoerna, a PMI-owned tobacco company.
- 2014 Vice hire a 10 year veteran of PMI, to be the project manager in Poland. Role: “Event management” and “New business development, activations, sponsorship”.
- April 2015 Talent Ventures Limited is formed in the UK (later renamed to Edition Worldwide).
- Aug-Sept 2015 Two people claiming to work for Vice Media Denmark make “trailers”. One claiming it’s for a “Philip Morris documentary series” another for “a big corporation”.
- Oct-Dec 2015 A ‘Senior Production Coordinator’ claiming to work for Vice Media in London listed on an industry website that they made Branded Content for PMI in Japan and Switzerland which included a public service announcement animation for iQOS and an exclusive 10[minute] documentary.
- Jan 2016 Talent Ventures Limited renamed to Edition Worldwide (via gov.uk)
- Feb 2016 Edition Worldwide changes address to Albert House UK which is a six minute walk to the Vice UK office. (via gov.uk)
- >>March 16th 2016 Financial Times reports partnership between Vice (Edition Worldwide) and Philip Morris.
- April 2016 Editing of a “sizzle reel for a new show” “under 30 minutes” for “[Risk Reduced Products] for Philip Morris International”.
- May-June 2016 Vice hires Jon King to be Interim Managing Director Vice Media in London. In charge of “restructuring branded content production division within Vice Media UK” (July 2016 becomes Managing Director of Edition Worldwide, Vice Media Group; May 2018 becomes Managing Director, Vice Special Projects, Vice Media Group)
- July-December 2016 A Producer claiming to work for VICE / Edition Worldwide in London, says they made “White label documentary projects” “[u]nder 30 minutes” in “Japan and Switzerland”.
- Oct 2016 — Mar 2017 A production executive claiming to work for Edition Worldwide says they managed “multi-million pound projects produced for White Label Fortune 500 company, for global distribution” requiring “confidentiality”. “Projects ranging from short form high-end science films, [PSA] animations to short form animations.”
- ~Nov 2016 (YouTube 2018) Vice / Edition Worldwide produce ‘The Decade of Disruption’ filmed in Switzerland and Japan for PMI. The video currently featured on the PMIScience website. The ad is misleading: A PMI employee flies to Japan, visits an “CMIC — An Independent Clinical Trial Operator” and gets good news about a clinical trial by a Japanese man; none of the study authors were Japanese; the CMIC is “heavily in the red”; the study was funded by PMI and all authors were employed by PMI; the graphics suggest a proportional reduction in risk. The last few frames of the film say “correct as of November 2016”. (Nov 13th 2017, Stanton A. Glantz writes an article how PMI’s own data shows “IQOS is Not Detectably Different from Conventional Cigs”.)
- ~2017 Two people, one identifying as ‘First Assistant Camera’ and another identifying as an editor and colourist for Vice Media Scandanavia — VIRTUE Worldwide put “NIGO for iQOS” on their resume.
- April 2017 Virtue Worldwide creates “A Visual Journey through The Iqos Pathfinder Project during the Milan design Week 2017”
- June 2017 Edition Worldwide returns to same address as Vice UK. (via gov.uk)
- ~Aug 2017 (YouTube 2018) “Creating a Smoke-free Future” is filmed in Sweden for PMI. Same director behind “The art behind The IQOS Vase”. (The director included similar clips on their showreel)
- Jan 2018 Vice Media in Madrid hires Mauricio Azabal the “IQOS Brand Manager Spain and Portugal” to become Chief Operating Officer of Vice Media Spain and Portugal.
- Sept 2018 Vice Impact, co-branded with Truth Initiative release a project called ‘Opioid Crisis’.
- UPDATED: April 2019 Vice launches “Change Incorporated” geo-locked to the UK. The site’s newsletter requires agreeing to Edition Worldwide Limited emailing you.
‘iQOS’ articles on Vice.com
So far, Vice has published six articles mentioning iQOS. None disclosed Vice’s work on iQOS. Only one was critical and it was republished from The Conversation an academic site that encourages republication.
- >>March 16th 2016 Financial Times reports partnership between Vice (Edition Worldwide) and Philip Morris.
- Nov 17 2016 Vice Italy i-D (fashion) publishes a story on an art project from inside the “IQOS Embassy” which is described as “comfortable and welcoming”.
- April 18 2017 Vice Italy publishes a story on an art project funded by iQOS. Published two weeks after being published. No mention of iQOS except in one image’s ‘alt text’ — text for the visually impaired.
- Dec 27 2017 Vice Tonic (Health) republishes a creative commons article by Stanton Glantz. The article is highly critical of iQOS.
- Jan 23rd 2018 Vice Tonic (Health) The article is neutral and uses a stock photo.
- Jan 28 2018 Vice Romania translates the article originally published on Tonic Jan 23rd 2018.
- Feb 25 2018 Vice Romania publishes an article on trying the iQOS for 7 days. It features nine images of a dye-blonde hipster, the feature image shows the Vice writer puffing in front of a no-smoking sign (SoOoO RebEliOuS!). Minimal criticism, one line even translates to: “You’ll love online tutorials to learn how to clean IQOS for tobacco” (Vice might have made the tutorial).
- June 13 2018 Vice Motherboard Germany publishes an article on Myths of the e-cigarettes which mentions iQOS in a neutral way.
Updates (March 22, 2019):
Correction (June 3, 2019): An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to IQOS as “I Quit Ordinary Smoking”. This is not an official acronym, just apocrypha originating sometime in 2015. The author regrets the error.
This story took a month to report. Huge thanks to the illustrator who made three incredible cartoons. Thanks to all whistle-blowers everywhere. You’re amazing. Special thanks to all the O.G. tobacco reporters for their wisdom while writing this story.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DANIEL VOSHART is a writer and former cinematographer from Toronto, Canada. He works in architecture and Virtual Reality and occasionally does forensic video consultation.
ABOUT NOTVICE
notvice is a blog critical of Vice Media. It is a mix of thorough investigations and shitposts. This blog might get republished as a book someday.
