Angeliki Balantani & Kris Schürch
In recent years, tobacco multinationals such as Philip Morris International (PMI) have rapidly expanded the global market for heated tobacco products (HTPs) and have intensified its promotion through paid media content that imitates independent journalism. We document the systematic use of this strategy in Switzerland, where HTP use has risen sharply and higher taxation is under political debate. This practice blurs the line between advertising and reporting, and allows public perception to be shaped while attempting to avoid the appearance of overt marketing.
In 2025, popular Swiss media outlets, including Le Temps, Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), Blue News, and Blick published sponsored articles financed by PMI. While labelled as paid content, or “in cooperation with PMI” at the start of the article, these pieces adopted the layout, headlines and tone of editorial journalism, making them difficult for readers to distinguish from genuine reporting. Titles illustrate the framing: Blue News ran “7 examples of how Philip Morris is driving change”, see Figure 1, while an NZZ article promoted HTPs and nicotine pouches as “less harmful alternatives to conventional cigarettes…What Switzerland can learn”. Such placements appeared alongside other genuine news, lending PMI’s narratives credibility.
Figure 1: Screenshot of Blue News article, “7 examples of how Philip Morris is driving change”, with the “In cooperation with Philip Morris International” underlined.
Two themes dominate PMI’s paid content. First, articles emphasise the company’s societal and economic importance in Switzerland. PMI highlights its Neuchâtel-based R&D centre “the Cube”, with more than 1,000 staff and investments of “hundreds of millions of USD”. Articles present PMI as a driver of innovation, sustainability and a partner in public health. Second, HTPs are framed as scientific achievements. PMI claims “around 875 independent publications” confirm their findings, and asserts toxic emissions are reduced by 90-95% compared with cigarettes in a paid content article titled “The five keys to harm reduction”. International examples are cited to reinforce the message: Sweden’s experience with snus and Japan’s uptake of HTPs are presented as models for a step towards a “smoke-free future” for Switzerland. In the Le Temps paid content article titled “Reducing the risks of tobacco?”, Serge Maeder, Global Head of Reduced-Risk Products Innovation at PMI is quoted saying “even if the health risks cannot be completely eliminated, the non-combustible alternatives are in any case better than cigarettes.”
PMI’s paid content consistently omits independent peer-reviewed findings showing less favourable results, such as that many toxicants remain at levels comparable to cigarettes. Laboratory emissions data are presented as evidence of health protection, despite the absence of long-term epidemiological evidence. Japan, often cited as a “success case”, has prevalent dual use consumption, which is not mentioned. By selectively citing company-funded research alongside credible public health sources, PMI constructs an illusion of scientific consensus. Similar tactics have been documented in Germany, where PMI targeted dental professionals with selectively referenced “harm reduction” materials, and in the United States, where executives placed paid content in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.
In the latter paid content article, figure 2, subtly identified as an advertisement at the top of the page, PMI frames itself as a company led by “science” that is working toward a smoke-free future, emphasising its large investments in research, its independent-survey data and its collaboration with regulators so as to position its new smoke-free products as scientifically substantiated alternatives to cigarettes. However, in doing so the piece constructs an illusion of a broad scientific consensus by selectively highlighting positive survey findings and PMI-commissioned research, while obscuring or downplaying independent critique of its methods and motivations, thus presenting its corporate strategy as if it were unanimously endorsed by the scientific community.
Figure 2 Screenshot of paid content article in The New York Times by Philip Morris International. Only when hovering over the “?” symbol does one read that “This content was paid for and created by Philip Morris International. The news and editorial staff of The New York Times had no role in this advertisement’s creation.”
The medium is as important as the message. More than a decade ago, the industry was already promoting its products online. Yet recently, PMI’s paid content strategy is designed to mimic editorial work, reducing the salience of “sponsored” disclaimers. Readers may miss these labels, in small or faint font, particularly when articles appear among genuine reporting. This tactic buys credibility of established news outlets without the reputational risk PMI may attract from overt advertising. The strategy reflects the Policy Dystopia Model’s description of industry use of instrumental tactics and framing to delay and weaken regulation. Similar covert promotional practices have been documented previously in digital and influencer marketing, but the scale and prominence of PMI’s placements in Switzerland are marking a new level of legitimacy-seeking, particularly in relation to their HTPs.
PMI’s campaign in Switzerland continues to illustrate how tobacco multinationals adapt established harm-reduction rhetoric to new communication channels. As Switzerland debates HTP taxation, these tactics risk shaping public opinion and weakening regulatory momentum. Recognising and denormalising these activities is essential. We hope that by highlighting this approach to effectively buy news media space, other tobacco control and public health organisations may begin to critically view and evaluate news articles driving industry narratives in their countries. This also includes motivating media outlets themselves to reassess their associations with the tobacco industry. Renewing storytelling around tobacco consumption and the tobacco industry can help reshape social perception.
As stated by Matthes et al. (2025), we need to empower health professionals’ to critically assess industry communication. It is important to recognise that Big Tobacco’s so-called ‘pseudo-transformation’ is not a genuine public health effort but rather a profit-oriented business approach. France and Australia already prohibit such tobacco sponsorships in news outlets. Where paid content articles are permitted, disclaimers must be prominent, as recommended by the Swiss Press Council and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Moreover, editorial and commercial roles must remain separate, and covert promotions prohibited, as shown by UK Advertising Standards Authority rulings on undisclosed e-cigarette ads. These measures align with the WHO FCTC and EU law, showing that disclosure, independence, training, and transparency are both necessary and feasible to ensure that the tobacco industry is not given a platform.
Authors:
Dr. Angeliki Balantani and Kris Schürch are employed by the Swiss Association for Tobaccco Control. Kris Schürch is also affiliated to the Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine, and the Graduate School for Health Sciences at the University of Bern in Switzerland.