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Published in
July 1999
Tobacco companies have agreed to take the ads off their billboards
and pay the rent for the anti-tobacco campaigns that will replace them...
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RESPONSIBLE ADVERTISING IS AN OXYMORONWith widespread regulations affecting Tobacco
companies in the US, a new wave of openness and is changing the way they are positioning
themselves. Now disappearing at a location near you, tobacco advertising leaves an unusual
legacy to the industry that gave it a face.
When it comes to the
tobacco industry, there is no shortage of people in attack mode. But would you expect a
tobacco company to come out and say things such as how low tar cigarettes are no safer
than their full-strength counterparts, that smoking poses health risks, and that there is
a connection between smoking and cancer? Welcome to truth in advertising.
Call it the 'internet effect', or
call it the best place to put a spin on irrefutable facts about your product or industry,
but a new phenomenon is disproving those who mourn that you can't believe anything you
read in advertising. Full-page ads taken out by Brown and Williamson in ‘USA
Today’ appeared in April, admitting that cigarettes do pose health risks. Actually it
was to launch their Web site, but the company appeared to be taking a shot at something no
one likes to spend money on: de-marketing. The site (www.brownandwilliamson.com) is
definitely worth a visit even if you do not care a fig about tobacco issues.
From a design perspective it's one of the
better corporate sites going. From a marketing tool that uses information as a weapon, the
Brown and Williamson folk (the ones who market Carlton, Cool and Lucky Strike brands) must
be applauded in leaving no stone unturned. You won't find the platitudes of mission
statements and the pictures of the board of directors here. The home page is designed to
look like a community, a place where people sit on park benches, and where the factory is
tucked away from the residential area. Using doctored photographs of a real city center,
the 'plant' (packed with the mandatory information on the planting, manufacturing and
distribution process) is tactfully situated way behind the 'career center' and the
'community center'. Yes, there's even a 'court house' (across from the 'library') where
you can dig up litigation archives, get some background on class action cases. Here we can
put the tobacco history and the company's woes (in 1997 the courts asked the company to
pay over one million dollars to the family of Roland Maddox family for his tobacco related
death) in perspective. In the 'Class Action Case' room, you learn how once the US Supreme
Court rejected a case filed by people who were exposed to asbestos. However, the
commentary ruefully adds that in the Broin v. Philip Morris case in Florida, the court
awarded damages to a group of flight attendants that claimed they had been exposed to
'second-hand' smoke while on the job.
DIRTY LINEN
Is all this effort to come clean necessary? From one point of view, hanging ones dirty
linen in public is a clever way of dulling the impact of those who might want to ridicule
a company or make mileage out of some shocking expose. Today's companies realize that with
such ubiquitous media, there is nowhere to hide. Court proceedings and legal documents
will always find their way into public domain. A simple search on Yahoo! Brings up links
leading to tobacco company documents made public by the courts, and bills presented to
congress. Even the Court TV program has a site (at
www.courttv.com/trials/tobacco/verdict.html) that allows you to view important verdicts.
So what else is there to do? With many forms of tobacco
advertising --outdoors, in magazines, and in sports environments --quietly disappearing,
it is only fitting that the companies reinvent their communication channels and reshape
the content. Because of the immediacy and limitless reach of electronic publishing today,
companies can no longer ignore issues thrown at them, hoping they would go away. Nor is
litigation a good club to swing, because it might rebound as bad PR. McDonald's discovered
this a few years ago when it tried to squash the accusations of two people in the United
Kingdom. The restaurateur won the legal battle, but the public relations disaster around
it undid years of careful marketing. Today McDonald’s must wish it could make the
Internet presence at www.mcspotlight.org
go away.
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