Likewise, Microsoft Corporation totally misjudged the power of the digital industry it thrives on, when it had its embarrassing company Email dragged into court and published on media Web sites thereafter. So Big Tobacco, now older and wiser has discovered the best advertising, despite what most people would think, is truthful advertising. The smart advocacy groups to back are the ones trying to minimize teen smoking. As the Brown and Williamson people put it, it's all about being 'responsible in a controversial industry'.

In this spirit of transparency the RJ Reynolds company (better known by the cartoon-styled Joe Camel ads) wants to assist people in "reviewing and retrieving non-privileged, non-competitively sensitive documents that RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company had produced during pre-trial discovery in a number of civil smoking and health cases". We're not talking of a sample. There are some than 6 million pages of these documents accessible. We may not think of this as advertising, per se, because we have been trained to believe that advertising is not information, but hype.

But getting consumers to interact with information about products and services is the new frontier of advertising. Packaging this information credibly, and exhaustively will become one of the big challenges for ad people who have grown comfortable producing ads in very much the same way as it was done fifty years ago.
Consider the strained adjectives, the clever positioning statements, and the beautifully art directed photographs that were once the staple of tobacco advertising. Today, they have no place in the difficult marketing task that lies ahead for Tobacco industry. They no longer want to be thought of as slick, savvy, and socially desirable, like the models in their ads of old. Even the liquor industry is under pressure to clean up its act. Groups like AdBusters, intent on redressing the impact of advertising in the media particularly targets companies such as Absolut Vodka.
One ad that mimics the Absolut campaign features a top shot of a street after a car accident. Emergency workers stand around broken bits of glass and blood, but the unmistakable police chalk markings outlining the shape of the Absolut bottle, makes a powerful statement about drinking and driving. And what’s Absolut Vodka’s response? So far, nothing. It’s a marketing dilemma: to react to a negative attack is easy, but can be self defeating. To take more proactive measures and address the issue head on, is expensive but sometimes inevitable. RJR Nabisco has just done the unthinkable and divested itself of the Tobacco business. It opens the door to a fresh approach to packaged goods marketing that will no longer be the target of angry consumer groups.

A 30-second anti-smoking TV commercial that runs on five major networks has teenagers talking about smoking. One girl says: "I don't need to smoke to prove myself. My coolness is not on trial here". But unlike most anti-smoking campaigns, this one is different. Created by Young and Rubicam advertising, New York, this is the new wave of advertising from the makers of Marlboro. As ridiculous as it may sound, it is evidence that tobacco companies are trying to clean up their act with marketing. "We think it's the responsible thing for us, as a manufacturer of a product that is marketed to adults, to take a proactive role in doing something about youth smoking prevention", said Philip Morris senior VP, Ellen Merlo. This Youth Smoking Prevention campaign, initiated by them includes 3 commercials and aggressive retail strategies targeted at the 10 to 14-year old.

One medium, about to disappear for tobacco companies in the US, is billboard advertising, or 'hoarding sites' as the ad industry calls it. Under the terms of the $206 billion settlement, tobacco companies have agreed to remove their billboard ads in 26 states as of April 22nd 1999 (in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.). However, they have also agreed to keep paying for the space until their leases expire. Why? In order that anti-smoking groups can use them! Talk about a bold compromise!

In the context of their new marketing openness, this is not surprising. Imagine this billboard of two cowboys on horseback riding into the sunset, both wearing oxygen masks. It’s not too far removed from the spoof ad done by Ad Busters featuring a group of men and women in business clothes, puffing contentedly outside an office door. The line: "Welcome to Marlboro Country", reflected the corporate intolerance towards smoking in America. One cigarette company actually thought this was a good strategy, and instead of positioning smoking as hip, took the opposite approach, empathizing with smokers who had few places left in the world where they could light up. The humourous series of ads featured smokers sitting out on the wings and fuselage of an obviously non-smoking flight. Another ad had passengers on a train, and a cruise ship doing the same thing. In this context, it comes as no surprise that in thirteen states (Arizona, Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin) tobacco companies have chosen to do their own billboards campaigns against consuming a product they market. As ludicrous as it may sound, it might help them score a few PR points.

This need to use of marketing to undo years of marketing may ironically rub off on the business of advertising that could do with a dose of respectability itself.