Problem/Objective: Direct e-mail communications from the tobacco industry is one of the industry's latest tactics for communicating directly with consumers. As with traditional tobacco industry direct mail to individuals on its extensive mailing lists, industry e-mails serve as both a means of direct contact with consumers and a way of promoting other means of marketing. In the past few years, brands have collected and utilized e-mail addresses to augment traditional mailings with e-mails. This presentation will describe the contents of direct e-mail, provide examples, and review the advantages of this channel.

Methods: Results are based on a content analysis of over 125 tobacco brand e-mails, collected by a convenience sample of monitors and currently in the Trinkets and Trash email archive. Sample emails include those from the brands of Camel, Kool, Salem and Newport, from 2004 through the present.

Results: Tobacco company brand e-mails serve a number of functions, including driving smokers to brand websites, promoting new products, conducting survey research, providing updates about promotions/programs, and providing codes or tools to smokers to participate in current programs (e.g., online games). These e-mails provide the industry with advantages in its ability to communicate quickly and efficiently with consumers for a relatively low price, and in its ability to track recipients' immediate post-receipt actions (e.g., link to and action at a corresponding brand website).

Conclusions: E-mail offers the industry significant advantages, not the least of which is the ability to transmit information under the radar screen of the public health community.