CHALLENGING BIG TOBACCO

Hot on the heels of new advertising from Philip Morris claiming the company’s goal is “to responsibly market our products to adults who choose to smoke,” the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is sending a different message: They’re lying.
Courtesy of Greer, Margolis, Mitchell, Burns & Associates in Washington, D.C., for its local client, a print ad that ran in major newspapers the day after the tobacco giant’s shows an executive with his mouth hideously twisted. Accompanying copy points out that big tobacco spends
$15 million per day on marketing, including ads in magazines with a large teen readership, like Rolling Stone, Vibe and The Sporting News.
“This [Philip Morris] campaign, the response to the [American] Legacy [Foundation] ads, it’s all part of the fact that these companies don’t want anti-smoking advertising that will actually be effective,” said David Mitchell, senior partner at Greer, Margolis.