Just last summer it seemed that the anti-smoking forces had finally figured out how to keep the tobacco giants from pitching to kids. In August the Food and Drug Administration declared nicotine a drug and issued sweeping regulations to restrict the sorts of smoking ads that most appeal to minors. Big tobacco is hardly giving up. Earlier this month the cigarette companies asked a federal court to suspend the new rules, most of which are scheduled to take effect this summer. While legal maneuvering will probably delay the regs, the companies are mounting aggressive traditional ad campaigns to keep the customers they have and win new ones. And in preparation for a stricter future, the industry is fast invading the marketing niches that the FDA hasn’t thought to regulate or can’t reach–from Internet sites to jazzy new packaging. As Bill Novelli, a former adman now with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, concedes of his foes: ““They are damned good.''
Clever marketers in many industries have been shifting away from conventional ad campaigns and toward subtler promotions: corporate America now does everything from sponsoring sports events (think Tostitos Fiesta Bowl) to producing record labels (classical CDs from Victoria’s Secret, anyone?). And no one has been more adept at this backdoor marketing than the cigarette companies. Since 1964, when the surgeon general declared smoking a health hazard, the government has progressively restricted the venues in which Big Tobacco can ply its wares, going after comic-strip pages first, then radio and television. But each time, Big Tobacco has found new outlets, splattering its brand names across the likes of race cars, T shirts and baseball caps. Last year, with a quarter of all American teens still smoking, the FDA decided to crack down on all ad tactics known to influence high-school kids. It has proposed prohibiting billboards near schools, color ads in publications with a large youth readership and brand-name sponsorship of entertainment events and clothing. While the tobacco companies deny they’re trying to circumvent the new rules, ad-agency insiders believe that the industry, with a total annual ad budget of $5 billion, is still one step ahead of Uncle Sam.
Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Media Education, is monitoring the cigarette companies’ expansion into cyberspace. He argues that the online world ““dramatically increases the ability to reach underage smokers.’’ In March his organization will release a report detailing tobacco-related material on the Web and ask the FDA to act. But how can the Feds stop a foreign subsidiary of a tobacco company from launching a site overseas–like Camel’s Web page, for example? ““U.S. regulations do not cross international lines,’’ asserts Peggy Carter, a spokesperson for Camel.
Marlboro has taken a less high-tech but no less inventive approach by producing a new Rolling Stone-size quarterly magazine called Unlimited. Its first issue, published last October, featured articles on arm-wrestling, road trips and slinky young starlets. But you can’t find Unlimited at any store. Marlboro mails it to some 2 million smokers on the company’s state-of-the-art databases. The company claims that everyone on the list is at least 21. Since all its readers are adults, Marlboro argues, Unlimited’s ads don’t have to be restricted to black-and-white. Of course, once the magazine has made it to the coffee table, there’s nothing to stop a minor from picking it up.
Perhaps the cigarette companies’ most creative moves have been in packaging. Much of the industry still clings to plain-vanilla graphics on the top brands, because they are familiar to longtime customers. But in a trend likely to catch on, RJR has launched a line of artily wrapped ““microsmokes,’’ which, like microbrews, are aimed at young trendies who disdain megabrands. Jumbos, for example, a brand of wide-gauge filters, features a stylized elephant. Dirk Herman, who launched RJR’s Moonlight brands, brags that ““the packaging alone sells the product.''
Over at the FDA, associate commissioner Mitch Zeller is monitoring the new developments with concern. ““This is a big challenge,’’ he says. He also admits that in areas like packaging, the law gives him no recourse. Government authority has its limits, and it seems that Big Tobacco is finally on the verge of discovering them.
