ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 10, 1996 TAG: 9610100086
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
The cigarette industry spent $1.2 billion less on advertising and promotions in 1994 than in the previous year, the first drop in the industry's massive marketing budget since 1986.
Cigarette makers spent $4.83 billion in 1994, down almost 20 percent from $6.03 billion the previous year, the Federal Trade Commission reported Wednesday.
Most of the drop came from promotions that directly hit consumers' wallets: coupons, multiple-pack discounts and other ``value-added promotions.'
Americans also got fewer free cigarette samples in 1994. That spending dropped to just $7 million in 1994, down from $40 million the previous year.
But tobacco companies increased by $95 million their spending on T-shirts, hats and other trinkets that bear cigarette brand names. They spent $850.8 million in 1994 on such promotions.
Even though marketing expenditures fell, domestic sales of cigarettes rose for the first time in 10 years. Tobacco firms sold 490.2 billion cigarettes in the United States in 1994, 28.8 billion more than the previous year. The FTC said, however, that part of the rise might have been because of retailers changing their inventories rather than to increased consumption.
LENGTH: Short : 33 linesby CNB