cookies and crackers (Sullivan, 1991, p. 1585). The company's major brands are Oreo, Chips Ahoy, Ritz, and Wheat Thins. RJR Nabisco also produces and markets Shredded Wheat cereal, Fleischmann's margarine, Milk Bone dog snacks, Planters nuts, and Life Savers candy.
In its domestic food processing marketing efforts, the company promotes the healthful characteristics of its products, which is somewhat ironic, as it fights adverse health claims against its tobacco products. RJR Nabisco relies heavily on brand name image in the promotion of its food products (Grant, 1991, p. 1452).
RJR Nabisco markets its food products worldwide. The company's most intensive foreign efforts, however, are in Canada, the United Kingdom, and continental Western Europe. The company's marketing focus in these foreign markets is virtually the same as that for the domestic market in the United States. RJR Nabisco is the market leader in cookies and crackers in Canada, is a major market player in the United
Kingdom, and is a significant competitor in continental Western Europe.
The domestic tobacco industry is beset with challenges to its advertising practices, health claims against its products, and legal and quasi legal restrictions on its activities. Each of these factors affect the ways in which R. J. Reynolds Tobacco and its competitors market products in the United States. In many foreign markets, these factors do not pose serious challenges to the marketing of tobacco products. In some, however, such as the European Community, market challenges to tobacco products are developing along similar lines to those in the domestic market of the United States (Dowd, 1991, p. 313).
The health issue surrounding the use of tobacco products is the most serious marketing challenge facing the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in the United States. Smoking tobacco, particularly in the form of cigarettes, creates a risk of sudden cardiac arrest fo...