Point of Sale Playbook

Every year, the tobacco industry spends billions encouraging people who smoke to continue and persuading nonsmokers, particularly youth, to start smoking. Tobacco companies use most of their marketing budget – nearly $1 million every hour – at the point of sale (POS), making it the primary venue for tobacco product marketing.

The POS refers to the approximately 375,000 retail outlets that sell tobacco products in the United States. The tobacco industry uses a variety of POS promotions to push their products in stores, including price discounts, strategic product placement, incentives for retailers to increase in-store marketing, as well as exterior and interior advertisements.

ChangeLab Solutions’ Point of Sale Playbook outlines policy options for regulating how and where tobacco products are marketed and sold. Using this resource, communities can consider strategies for addressing the “four Ps” of tobacco marketing: place, price, product, and promotion. The Playbook provides an overview of the policy options as well as examples of their implementation at the local level.

The Playbook also sets forth the foundational steps for creating a regulatory framework to support POS work. It is designed to be used in conjunction with ChangeLab Solutions’ Tobacco Retailer Licensing Playbook, which describes the steps necessary for developing, implementing, and enforcing a comprehensive tobacco retailer licensing policy.