LAUSANNE: US tobacco manufacturer Philip Morris, which produces
several cigarette brands including Malboro, has appointed Roddy
Child-Villiers to the newly created position of director of
communications.
Child-Villiers will be based in Lausanne, Switzerland and heads up the
Central Europe, Middle East and Africa operation. He will manage a team
of three and reports to Kathleen Linehan, vice-president of public
affairs.
He will be primarly responsible for tobacco issues across the company,
concentrating specifically on media relations, public issues analysis
and positioning and internal communications.
The company’s key tobacco brands are Marlboro, the largest selling brand
in the world, L&M, the third largest and Bond Street the eighth most
popular brand.
Child-Villiers claims to be undaunted about the potential difficulty of
the job which has resulted from the negative portrayal of tobacco
companies.
’Philip Morris is one of the world’s great companies and tobacco is one
of the world’s great communication issues,’ he said.
Prior to his appointment, Linehan was responsibility for corporate
communications across the region.
His appointment also follows the restructure of the company’s European
operations 18 months ago. It split Eastern Europe from the rest of
Europe into a separate regional division which includes Russia, all the
former Soviet republics and Mongolia.
The restructure is designed to give the company greater leverage in
exploiting markets where it believes sales can be increased. Due to the
demonisation of tobacco in the US, domestic sales have fallen and it has
become an increasingly hostile territory to operate in.
Philip Morris plans to plough pounds 156 million into a cigarette
packing project in the Leningrad region outside St Petersburg.
