Stakeholder #3

ClkerFreeVectorImages. 4/2014. https://pixabay.com/en/smoke-ash-filter-cigarette-cigar-295108/

The tobacco (cigarette) companies’ alliance with distributors around the world is a large source of profit for both companies involved due to the relatively consistent customer base. For CVS in this situation, the projected loss of profit, based on analysis of previous years was roughly two billion. These companies are most often encountered by teenagers who are either acquiring cigarettes from older relatives or peers who are already addicted or are old enough to buy cigarettes, yet are still pressured by addicted influences. The addiction, and thus size and reliability of the cigarette companies’ customer base, however, have been dwindling over time as the popularity of quitting grows. Even well known brands, like Marlboro, Newport, and Camel, have been evicted from all CVS Pharmacies due to their associated health risks. These health risks have really related tobacco brands and the act of smoking as villainous characters. Thus, this event covers CVS pharmacies and tobacco companies as the rivals and top stakeholders. Currently, it is the reputation and the profits that are at stake for the tobacco companies. In the long run, it is actually the entirety of these companies that are at stake, and events like this one only push them closer to their extinction.

"CVS is more than within its right to sell or not sell a legal product but they should be honest about it." 

• This quote obviously shows the evident agitation present in cigarette companies. This quote is really playing on the reader's morals and any beliefs against big business in the media.

"...CVS is scrapping tobacco for future revenue it will receive from Obamacare." 

• This quote again tries to pin the reader against CVS by pointing out the pharmacy's business plan and indicating that was the only reason for taking the stance that it did.

"Even if CVS did trigger a mass exodus of newly health conscious pharmacies from the tobacco market, it wouldn’t make much difference. Less than 4 percent of cigarettes are sold in pharmacies versus 16 percent in convenience stores, 21 percent in tobacco stores, and 48 percent in gas stations, according to market research from Euromonitor." 

• This quote uses facts to downplay the scale that CVS thinks it will affect. The purpose of this quote is to identify the reality that the pharmacy's announcement will not only not affect its customers, but that it certainly won't affect tobacco companies' reach.

Again, these cigarette companies will have the most in common with those who are frustrated with CVS's decision, like the smoking population. That being said, they will have the least in common with the pharmacy itself, since the views held by these two parties are polar opposites.