Movie based on Global market context

Thank You For Smoking

Date
June, 3rd 2016

Global marketing is marketing on a worldwide scale reconciling or taking commercial

advantage of global operational differences, similarities and opportunities in order to meet
global objectives" Competition continues to be market-based and ultimately relies on
delivering superior value to consumers. However, success in global markets depends on
knowledge accumulation and deployment. Today, more and more marketing companies
specialize in translating products from one country to another. Below i am going to review the
movie named "Thank You for Smoking" in global market context.
In a role Aaron Eckhart seems born to play, the hero of "Thank You for Smoking" is Nick
Naylor is the chief lobbyist for "Big Tobacco," and he's the best in the business. In his own
words, "Michael Jordan plays ball. Charlie Manson kills people. I talk.", who makes his
living defending the rights of smokers and cigarette makers in today's neo-puritanical culture.
Confronted by health zealots out to ban tobacco and an opportunistic senator (Macy) who
wants to put poison labels on cigarette packs, Nick goes on a PR offensive, spinning away the
dangers of cigarettes on TV talk shows and enlisting a Hollywood super-agent (Rob Lowe) to
promote smoking in movies. Nick's newfound notoriety attracts the attention of both
tobacco's head honcho (Duvall) and an investigative reporter for an influential Washington
daily (Holmes). Nick says he is just doing what it takes to pay the mortgage, but he begins to
think about how his work makes him look in the eyes of his young son Joey (Bright).
Based on a book by Christopher Buckley, Thank You for Smoking follows the unapologetic
Naylor as he spins for cigarettes in the major media, including an appearance on the Joan
Lunden Show in which he defends the industry before a hostile studio audience while seated
next to a bald teen dying of smoking-related cancerand wins at least some of them over.
Naylor's other missions include meeting a Hollywood super-agent in an attempt to pay
filmmakers to feature more "cool smoking" in their movies and buying off the dying-of-lungcancer "Marlboro Man" to get him to stop bad-mouthing smoking in the press. All the while,
the supremely confident Naylor is trying to be a good role model for his adoring son Joey
while teaching him the virtues of "argument" as a profession.
Naylor's best friends are lobbyists for "Big Alcohol" and "Big Firearms." They jokingly call
themselves the "Merchants of Death." His chief rival is a Birkenstock-wearing Senator

pushing a bill to label all cigarette packages as poison with a large skull-and-crossbones
symbol.

It's difficult to nail down positives in a movie that's so thoroughly satirical. The book upon
which the film is based has been claimed both by Republicans and Democrats as
championing their positions on the issues of smoking legislation and personal freedom.
Chances are that anyone with strong feelings on those issues will, similarly, find messages on
the big screen to make them feel vindicatedand targeted.
Having said that, Smoking's one clear virtueand the source of its laugh-out-loud humoris
the way in which it bracingly bulldozes political correctness by revealing the "true motives"
of all the parties involved to make way for something approaching an honest conversation. Its
main message is that nearly everyone in our media culture is spinning the facts to gain
advantage. Agreed. However, the film stops short of suggesting any helpful response to that.
(More on this in the "Conclusion.")
Naylor says drinking a particular wine will "make you believe in God." He's regularly
referred to as Satan or the devil for protecting Big Tobacco and selling cigarettes to the
American public. A man says that even Jesus Christ would describe a certain action as being
"mighty white of you boys."
A man menaces another with a rifle. Nick's life is threatened on live TV. A man is kidnapped,
stripped, and his body is covered with nicotine patches in an attempt to kill him.
The three "merchants of death" debate whose product kills the most people. Cigarettes easily
beats both alcohol and firearms with 1,200 deaths every day. The lobbyist for Big Firearms is
said to have joined the Army so he could shoot college students during the protests of the '60s
and '70s. Instead, he ended up in Vietnam, where we see him shot in the arm.
Obviously, cigarettes are the central focus of the film. The tobacco industry and its product
are outrageously defended to humorous effect. But we also hear plenty about the negative
health impact of cigarettes. One character dies from a smoking-related condition. Another is
close. A third almost dies from the nicotine patch assault. He is said to have survived only
because of the tolerance built up over a lifetime of smoking.

A tobacco baron called The Captain says that he went to Korea to shoot Chinese people, and
now they're his best customers. Naylor makes a presentation to Joey's class for a parental
career day in which he humorously challenges the scientific credibility of a little girl's mother
for saying that "cigarettes kill" and urges the kids to challenge authority.
Jason Reitman's feature debut is a smart and funny film. Building on Buckley's book, he
succeeds in lampooning both the tobacco industry's ridiculously bold defense of its killer
product and legislation-happy politicians. His cast delivers likable, winning performances. In
what could have been a difficult role, Aaron Eckhart fits effortlessly into Naylor's "morally
flexible" shoes. He's completely charming and persuasive spouting his reprehensible spin.
In fact, the film's humor bursts from his deliveries of the most politically incorrect statements
imaginable with utter conviction and sincerity. Naylor talks with the skill of a trial lawyer
whose courtroom is popular opinion. Somehow, he gets away with telling an audience that
cigarette companies hate it when smokers die because they lose customers. Or despairing
over the passing of Hollywood's golden age of smoking because of the whole "health issue."
Or answering his son's question about what makes the American government the greatest in
the world by saying, "Our endless appeals system."
Of course, Thank You for Smoking is not really about cigarettes. In a way, it's about integrity.
It wonders if there's really such a thing as truth. Naylor is forced to ask himself if the
morality of what we do to pay the mortgage really matters. Is the greatest triumph simply
found in winning the argument, in beating the system, in getting away with it? Is it more
important to find the real truth and adhere to it or just to construct a version of the truth most
likely to protect your own personal freedom?
Reitman's film never really answers the questions it raises. It's too busy getting us to laugh at
the skillful spinmeisters who form our perceptions. But its silence on those answers is a kind
of answer in itself: It doesn't really matter. Nick Naylor owned the audience at my screening.
We cheered for him and against the Senator who wants to label cigarettes as poison. The
Senator is too judgmental and self-righteous. Worse, he just cares too deeply about his ideas
of "right" and "wrong."
In that way, the film taps into a seismic cultural shift by fiendishly positioning its hero as the
champion of a public "enemy" and getting us to agree, in principle, to his idea of freedom.

The story's ultimate message to us isn't "light up." It's "lighten up." Truth is too slippery to
hold on to. Package it however you like and sell it to the masses. Buyer beware.
This philosophy rings most hollow in Naylor's mentoring of his son in the art of spin. In recreating himself in Joey, you can see occasional doubt in Naylor's eyes about the path he's
chosen. It's in his complete inability to give Joey anything worth actually believing (beyond
winning the next argument) that Reitman either captures or is captured by our culture's crisis
of faith. Truth is hard to find in the age of spin. But it's out there. And according to Jesus
who wouldn't spin to save His lifeit's the only path to real "personal freedom" (John 8:3132).

References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_marketing
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427944/reviews
http://www.e-xanthos.co.uk/blog/top-viral-social-media-marketing-campaigns-of-2015-so-far/