289Regional Advocacy Center “Life” and Smoke Free Ukraine Coalition presented the results of a nationwide public monitoring of the presence of advertising and sales promotion of tobacco products at the points of sale and checkout areas. The comprehensive law that completely bans all types of tobacco products advertising, sponsorship and promotion came into force two years ago – on September 16th, 2012.
During August 2014 volunteers and activists of the Coalition attended nearly 1024 points of sales in Kyiv and 14 other cities in Ukraine. The monitoring covered all types of points of sales: kiosks (53%), shops and mini-markets (29%), supermarkets (18%).
These are the key findings of the monitoring:
- the level of TAPS law enforcement in Ukraine remains very high – 99,7%;
- only 3 (out of 1024) direct violations of the law were revealed, namely cases of placing placards and/or posters (may be in special displays) in any sizes with image of cigarettes brands;
- 77% of the points of sale have different types of sales promotion, prohibition to which are not clearly spelled out in the legislation: special equipment and displays in showcases and checkout areas, in order to attract attention to certain brands of cigarettes, a special tobacco product placement, placing cigarettes on bright/colored background in frames, boxes, panels etc;
- 31% of the points of sales have colorful stickers with the price and/or trade accessories featuring the colors and shapes that resemble tobacco brands (coin holder for the rest at the checkout area, for example;
- in 5% of the point of sales (51 cases) participants of this monitoring discovered the presence of sale promoters, sales representatives, consultants, who informed customers about new types and brands of cigarettes;
- vast majority of the points of sale (92%) place the cigarette pack with the side, which consists only a warning inscription and not graphic warning label. Only 11% of the points of sale fulfill the terms of accommodating price list with prices for tobacco products on a separate sheet of paper.
So we can conclude that tobacco companies actively use tobacco product placement and display designs to attract the attention of consumers at the points of sale. Moreover, the number of cases and “creativity” are growing, special equipment and displays in the showcases and at the checkout areas differentiate, packs of cigarettes are placed on a bright colored backgrounds in boxes, panels etc. Thus, special placement is a major factor of sales promotion of cigarettes after general ban of all forms of advertising and sponsorship of tobacco products in Ukraine.
“In fact, those examples are the types of sales promotion of tobacco products placement under the guidelines of Article 13 of the FCTC Guidelines. Sales promotion is also prohibited by legislation of Ukraine (Article 16 of TAPS ban law of Ukraine № 3778-IV) but the problem is that certain types of sales promotion are in the “gray zone” of law regulation and are not considered as direct violations of the law by national regulatory authorities, courts and tobacco business”, – commented Andriy Skipalskyi, Coordinator of Smoke Free Ukraine Project implemented by Regional Advocacy Center “Life”. – Therefore, the solution that we will definitely propose to the Parliament – will be a complete display ban of packs of cigarettes in all points of sales to reduce smoking prevalence especially among children and the youth”.