Philip Morris Plots Aggressive New Product Blitz

Wall Street Journal:

Sitting in his office overlooking Lake Geneva, Philip Morris International Chief Executive André Calantzopoulos takes a long drag from an unusually short cigarette. Called Marlboro Intense, the product has been shrunk down by about a half inch, and offers smokers seven potent puffs apiece, versus the average of eight or so milder draws.

The idea behind Intense is to appeal to customers who, due to indoor smoking bans, want to dash outside for a quick nicotine hit but don't always finish a full-size cigarette. Pointing to his lit Intense, the CEO says there are "possibly 50 markets that are interested in deploying it."

Marlboro Intense is likely to be part of an aggressive blitz of new smoking products PMI will roll out around the globe once the company -- now a unit of New York-based Altria Group Inc. -- becomes a standalone entity. That change will be set into motion tomorrow, when the Altria board is expected to approve a long-awaited decision to split PMI from Philip Morris USA. The move would free the tobacco giant's international operations of legal and public-relations headaches in the U.S. that have hindered its growth.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[Mort]

We don't tolerate guys who murder others with guns, but we bend over backwards for these criminals. Our lawmakers pad their wallets with blood money. Tobacco has taken or destroyed the lives of millions. Yet there are still so many who keep puffing away. As long as we keep buying cancer sticks they'll keep making them. And they don't care who they kill in the process.

[Trittydi]

Fuck You Phillip Morris, and the horse of death you ride on.

*

[KOisGod]

And on another criminal enterprise note:

The Subprime-crime _

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080129/bs_nm/subprime_crime_dc_3;_ylt=Amhg4i82SViuvlH0AHr5B3UE1vAI

"We anticipate in the next year that another wave of adjustable rate mortgages will reset and with that we anticipate that the mortgage corporate fraud potential cases to increase," said Sharon Ormsby, head of the FBI's financial crimes section.

The FBI is investigating the corporate cases in parallel with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has opened about three dozen civil investigations into the subprime market collapse. Some of the probes overlap, an official said.

Targets of the SEC probe include Swiss bank UBS AG (UBSN.VX) and U.S investment banks Morgan Stanley (MS.N), Merrill Lynch (MER.N), Bear Stearns (BSC.N), as well as bond insurer MBIA (MBI.N).

The SEC, which has formed an internal subprime mortgage task force, is looking at how financial firms priced mortgage-based securities and whether they should have told investors earlier about the declining value of those securities.

[PDXTransplant]

Big Tobacco really pisses me off when I see crap like this. I finally quit after smoking on and off over the past 25 years. I was lucky enough to find the little blue pill called Chantix. So when it worked for me I told so many of my smoking friends about it and most of them are now on it now and they are so happy with their progress. It is a miracle drug and I am so pleased to have had the chance to take it and finally quit. I am no longer spending my hard earned money on cigarettes. The smell, and the mess are all gone and my car and I no longer smells like an ashtray. Smoking is one of the hardest habits to break, but when I seen how happy it made my two kids and my mom it made it that much easier.

[hip dibler]

I quit a month ago and I feel GREAT!!

[Maschine]

For any of you that are against tobacco and can't stand listening to the federal government responmding to the high cost of health Care becasue of he efeects of nicotine. Perhaps you can ponder this issue we face ijn Canada.

Why does the governement allow tobacco to be flacoured. have you seen the new Prime Time cigarillo's or their opffshoots.

You can now puff tobacco that tastes like a Cherry. I smoke and my first experiences was with Sweet Caps, rough smoke for a newbie, but i persisted, it was easdy back then,

Now, kids are inhaling on the first puff, with no problems.

Same with chew, it was the vilest thing i ever tasted, never used it, Now, you can have a dozen flavors that mask the taste and deliver a good jolt of nicotine.

You have to wonder. I can understnd how banning it is near to impossible­....but this manipulation , its criminal.

Prime times, even look like smokes and they have a filter on them.....C­OLTS were cigars with a plastic holder, not too mnay kids would use them.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Why don't they just petition the FDA for a way to let people get their vitamin 'N' without the cigarette? 'Happy pills' for smokers who are in places where you can't smoke, you've got the addiction, you need your little nicotine 'happy buzz', so it's either chew or grit your teeth,
give me a box of nico-pellets so if I have to go someplace like on a airplane or something
and I want my 'happy', I can have it.

Side note: Didya know that Bayer used to make heroin for public sale? 'War on drugs'=Ultimate Mother Of All Jobs Programs..­.

[GetoffMylawn]

These are the guys that killed my grandparents.

[SubparDude]

:
New WMDs to be deployed in US markets. . .

And Bush imagines Al Queda is our foe.

He is our Maginot Line.

Aarrgggh.
:

[gcallaghan]

The effect of the niocotine is heightened by lacing the cigarettes with plutonium, hastening both the nicotine absorbtion and the smoker's death. Price per pack for the new cigarettes was adjusted sharply upward to offset this anticipated decline in living customers.