The mock cigarette-recall spots, which also ran over the weekend during “Saturday Night Live,” the NCAA Final Four, “Mad TV” and “Face the Nation,” are part of a cheeky national anti-smoking advertising campaign launched by the American Legacy Foundation, a public-health organization devoted to reducing tobacco use.
Cheryl Healton, president and CEO of the foundation, says the group did extensive research to make sure the concept of April Fools’ was understood by various cultural groups in the country who might see the ads. “Virtually everyone seemed to know,” she says. “I don’t think we ran a risk that too many people would run out and stockpile cigarettes.”
The American Legacy Foundation is fighting fire with fire by using a sophisticated advertising campaign to combat the marketing campaigns launched by the industry. Cigarette companies spend about $8.2 billion a year on advertising in the U.S. alone. “They’re masters of marketing,” Healton says. “If you think about the $200 million we spend, we really are David compared to Goliath. If we are going to make a dent at counteracting their ads, we have to be hard-hitting.”
The first ads in the American Legacy Foundation’s 2001 campaign ran during the Super Bowl. One was narrated by a man with a tube inserted through a hole in his neck, after his larynx was removed due to throat cancer. He speaks in a robotic monotone through an amplifying device. The other features a man discussing the death of his wife when she was 46 due to lung cancer, as snapshots of the couple with their young son flashed on the screen. “I never thought of 23 as middle aged,” he says.
Ironically, it’s the tobacco industry that is indirectly footing the $140 million bill for the countermarketing campaign. The American Legacy Foundation was created and funded through the landmark 1998 tobacco-settlement agreement, which required the tobacco industry to pay out $206 billion over 25 years to the 46 states that filed lawsuits and devote funds to health-education efforts. Although Philip Morris refused to comment on the April Fools’ Day recall, spokesman Brendan McCormick offered a terse statement. “Philip Morris is the largest funder of the American Legacy Foundation, and we support their efforts to educate the public about the health effects of smoking.”
The 1998 settlement hampered the tobacco industry’s legal ability to advertise, imposing a ban on all billboards, cut advertising in sports arenas and forbid the use of cartoon characters like Joe Camel. But industry spending on advertising overall is on the rise, and it increased by 22 percent in the year following the settlement. Companies still get their names out on the airwaves with messages that supposedly carry an anti-smoking message for youth.
Lorillard Tobacco Co., for example, has launched an ad that runs in teen magazines saying “Tobacco is whacko if you’re a teen.” Healton is skeptical about the true intention of such messages. Although its appears to be an anti-smoking message, she says the implicit suggestion that tobacco might not be “whacko” for adults may actually work to generate interest among teenagers. “We know that teens aspire to be adultlike,” Healton says. “You wouldn’t say ‘safe sex is good-if you’re a teen.’”
Philip Morris used the slogan “Think. Don’t smoke” in advertisements that ran on MTV and other teen markets. “The use of the word ‘don’t’ is generally not considered the most effective way to reach teens,” Healton says. “One of the dangers of the settlement is that the tobacco companies continue to have access to the market research on youth, and they can use it any way they want under the guise that it’s for prevention. It’s like the fox watching the chicken coop.”
The next ads in the American Legacy Foundation’s campaign will focus on youth prevention. In the process of developing the campaign, the foundation examined precisely the same type of data on youth consumer habits that cigarette makers have studied to sell tobacco to kids. They came up with the idea for an anti-smoking “brand” tagged “The Truth.” “The fundamental idea is to offer adolescents an opportunity to affiliate with an alternative to smoking that’s cool, that’s rebellious, that speaks to them, that empowers them as consumers that can reject tobacco,” Healton says. Short of a recall, that may be their best hope.
