“Doubt is our product”: PR versus science

How can a public relations campaign win against clear scientific evidence? The tobacco companies found the way to do it.

Chesterfield cigarette advertisement, 1930.

The Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. produced an internal document called “Smoking and Health Proposal” ^[1] in the summer of 1969. A copy is available in the UCSF  Legacy Tobacco Documents Library. This proposal, and the documents alongside it in the library archive, chart B&W’s plans to deal with the scientific evidence linking smoking with lung cancer and heart disease.

Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the “body of fact” that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy. Within the business we recognise that a controversy exists. However, with the general public the consensus is that cigarettes are in some way harmful to the health. If we are successful in establishing a controversy at the public level, then there is an opportunity to put across the real facts about smoking and health. Doubt is also the limit of our “product”. Unfortunately, we cannot take a position directly opposing the anti-cigarette forces and say that cigarettes are a contributor to good health. No information that we have supports such a claim.

Smoking and Health Proposal, Bates No. 690010927/0935 ^[1]

B&W are clear about the line to take: There is no “consensus”, there is a “controversy”. That is the key message. Doubt is the product. Philip Lesly expands on this in an article in Public Relations Review ^[2]:

People generally do not favour action on a non-alarming situation when arguments seem to be balanced on both sides and there is a clear doubt. The weight of impressions on the public must be balanced so people will have doubts and lack motivation to take action. Accordingly, means are needed to get balancing information into the stream from sources that the public will find credible. There is no need for a clear-cut ‘victory’. [...] Nurturing public doubts by demonstrating that this is not a clear-cut situation in support of the opponents usually is all that is necessary […]

P. Lesly, Coping With Opposition Groups ^[2]

Fred Panzer, a vice president of the Tobacco Institute, explores ways to go beyond this “holding strategy” of creating doubt. In the “Roper Proposal” ^[3] he suggests a plan to promote rival hypotheses, rival experts and rival reports:

For nearly twenty years, this industry has employed a single strategy to defend itself on three major fronts – litigation, politics and public opinion.

While the strategy was brilliantly conceived and executed over the years helping us win important battles, it is only fair to say that it is not – nor was it intended to be – a vehicle for victory. On the contrary, it has always been a holding strategy, consisting of

• creating doubt about the health charge without actually denying it
• advocating the public’s right to smoke, without actually urging them to take up the practice
• encouraging objective scientific research as the only way to resolve the question of health hazard

[...] there are millions of people who would be receptive to a new message, stating:

• Cigarette smoking may not be the health hazard that the anti-smoking people say it is because other hypotheses are at least as probable.

The Roper Proposal would be a persuasive (if not strictly scientific) medium for this message, which we have done little to develop in a systematic or comprehensive way.

Following is my outline of the steps required to start a shift in public opinion if the Roper Proposal is accepted.

A SCENARIO FOR ACTION

1. Select a panel of experts to consult on the design of the study. Ideally they would be prestige figures who would initially have a solid contribution to make and who would also be willing to endorse the study publicly at a later stage.
2. Conduct the pilot study.
3. If favorable, present the results to carefully selected members of the following key groups [...] The purpose is two-fold
   (a)  to gain the support and participation of friends and
   (b)  to neutralise any adverse action that may be brewing. [...]
4. Conduct the full scale survey.
5. If the results are favorable, release them as a book [...] hopefully published by a legitimate house. In effect, such a book would be a counter – Surgeon General’s report. The principal authors would be Burns Roper and an eminent research scientist. The advisory panel – hopefully broadened as a result of step 3 – would write the introduction. The industry’s funding role would be fully acknowledged.
6. As a book the material would be marketed and promoted in all the many ways available [...]

And best of all, it would only have to be seen – not read – to be believed…just like the Surgeon General’s report.

F. Panzer, The Roper Proposal,
Bates No. 2024274199/4202 ^[3]

Medical authorities…

The “Roper Proposal” sets out a way forward. A clear scientific finding can be obfuscated by suggesting alternative hypotheses. The public will not follow the detail of a scientific argument. Where an authoritative scientific report exists, a rival report can be released to cast doubt on its findings. This creates the impression that “one scientist says one thing, another says something else”, thus sowing uncertainty and confusion.

How successful was the tobacco companies’ PR effort? The campaign to confuse the health issues surrounding smoking began in earnest on January 4, 1954 with the Tobacco Industry Research Committee’s newspaper ad “A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers” ^[4]. The U.S. tobacco industry eventually moved beyond debating the health impact of smoking with the signing of the “Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement” ^[5] in November 1998. The campaign of doubt had won the industry a forty year delay.

To Sum Up

The PR techniques deployed to combat established scientific knowledge are well understood and effective. When the scientific evidence is running against you, doubt is the key to success. You have to put up a smokescreen of uncertainty and confusion. Put forward rival hypotheses, rival experts and rival reports. The contents of the reports don’t matter, no one will read them. The rival reports’ mere existence is all that matters. The rival arguments may be weak or nonsensical, but the detail isn’t important. Few people will follow the detail; the goal is to generate an impression of uncertainty.

20,679 physicians…

There is an established set of key messages:

• There is no scientific “consensus”;
• There is a scientific “controversy”;
• Other hypotheses are at least as probable;
• Here is a list of “prestige figures” who disagree with the mainstream view;
• One report says one thing, but here’s another saying something else, so who knows where the truth lies?

There is no need to prove any of the rival claims. There is no need to “win” an argument. The goal is to buy some time, and then to keep buying more time. There is no need for “victory” in the campaign. Nurturing public doubt is all that’s required. Doubt delivers delay.

References

1. Smoking and Health Proposal, Bates No. 690010927/0935, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, University of California, San Francisco (page 4 of 9). Also stored as Bates No. 690010951/0959.
2. Coping with Opposition Groups, Philip Lesly, Public Relations Review 18 (4), 325–334 (1992)
3. The Roper Proposal, memorandum from Fred Panzer, May 1, 1972.
   Bates No. 2024274199/4202, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, University of California, San Francisco
4. A Frank Statement To Cigarette Smokers, Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC), January 4, 1954. Bates No. 86017454, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, University of California, San Francisco
5. Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement Summary, Office of the Attorney General, State of California