Audience: Tobacco control researchers, advocates, community health workers and policymakers

Key Points: The continuing struggle to define the tobacco industry and its meaning in society lies at the heart of today's tobacco control efforts. The cigarette is the single most deadly consumer product ever made, yet the industry continues aggressively promoting its use, while claiming to be acting responsibly. How can tobacco control counter tobacco industry self-presentations that suggest the industry is part of the solution rather than a fundamental cause of the tobacco epidemic? This set of papers based on internal tobacco company documents explores how the industry tries to define and present itself, why it matters, and how its philanthropic efforts serve to advance its goals. Efforts to extend conversations about the “endgame” of tobacco control efforts must consider how industry activities define not only smoking as a desirable behavior, but the tobacco industry as a desirable business.

Learning Objectives: At the end of the presentation, participants will: 1. Describe industry self-presentation efforts across several domains; 2. Consider whether a healthy tobacco industry is compatible with tobacco control goals; and 3. Consider how advocacy can undermine industry self-presentation.

Benefits: Explicitly considering industry self-presentation and how to counter it can help the tobacco control movement stretch beyond the next smokefree air law or cessation program toward developing and sustaining a larger vision for tobacco control.