Instinctif Partners
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Instinctif Partners, Tobacco Tactics, updated 22 March 2022, accessed 16 April 2024.
Instinctif Partners, which was known as the College Group until 2014, is a Public Relations (PR) company based in the United Kingdom (UK), with a presence in Europe, the United States, the Middle East, and Africa.12
The company has worked with the tobacco and e-cigarette industries. In 2020, for example, the EU Transparency register showed that Instinctif was paid a figure between €100,000 and €199,000 by Imperial Brands.3 However, Instinctif said that as of September 2020, they no longer worked with tobacco companies in Brussels.4
Background
Staff: Past & Present
- Brandon Mitchener, Managing Partner of Brussels office since December 2018.56
- Almos Molnar, former Imperial Tobacco Corporate Affairs Manager.
Relationship with the Tobacco Industry
Worked with Imperial Brands on ‘Grassroot’ Opposition to European E-cigarette Regulations
From 2018 until September 2020 Instinctif Partners provided Imperial Tobacco with “monitoring and strategic advice on a number of issues but mainly related to vaping”.7 According to Instinctif’s entry on the EU Transparency Register, this contract was worth between €50,000 and €99,000 in 2018.8 Imperial Tobacco paid €10,000 to fund an European Citizens Initiative called “Let’s demand smarter vaping regulations”,9 a petition that calls for the European Commission to repeal EU Tobacco Products Directive Article 20, which is concerned with the regulation of e-cigarettes.10 Instinctif’s Managing Partner Brandon Mitchener also told Politico that the tobacco company was setting up a website to allow citizens to add their signature to the petition. The website, vapingisnottobacco.eu, was launched at the end of April 2019.11
Instinctif Partners put out a press release promoting both “pillars” of the campaign: the Citizens’ Initiative and the website (which provided a tool to help people to contact their political representative) as well as the campaign’s social media accounts.12 This press release did not mention Instinctif’s contract with Imperial Brands or the tobacco company’s funding of the campaign. On 30 April 2019, Brandon Mitchener moderated the Vaping is NOT Tobacco Campaign launch, which was livestreamed on Youtube.13
On 22 May 2019, the messaging on the Facebook page for the Vaping is NOT Tobacco campaign outlined how it resembled “A grassroots campaign” which “is a bottom-up movement aimed at energising citizens to stand up for an issue they believe in.”14Sponsoring and organising otherwise disorganised citizens into visible ‘grassroot’ opposition to tobacco legislation is called Astroturfing and is a well-known tactic used by the tobacco industry, often with the assistance of PR companies.15
- For more information see Imperial Brands’ Use of the EU Citizens’ Initiative
Other Tobacco Clients
- In 2016 Instinctif Partners reported that Philip Morris UK was its client.16
- In 2014 the Instinctif Asia branch worked with British American Tobacco (BAT) Hong Kong to reportedly help enhance BAT’s work culture.17
Worked with the E-cigarette Industry
In 2014 Instinctif Partners handled the PR of NJOY,18 an independent American e-cigarette company, which was taken to court over e-cigarette patent claims that same year by Fontem Ventures, a subsidiary of Imperial Tobacco.
NJOY and Fontem Ventures settled in 2015.19 In September 2016 NJOY filed for bankruptcy.20
Relevant Link
TobaccoTactics Resources
