Spots featuring body bags air during Olympics
Jump to full article: Baltimore (MD) Sun, 2000-09-21
Author: Scott Shane / Sun Staff
Intro: A young man with a bullhorn shouts up to gray-suited executives who peer warily from their windows several stories above.
"We're gonna leave these here," he says, "so you can see what 1,200 people actually look like!"
The edgy anti-smoking ad airing on NBC during the Olympics is most Americans' first encounter with the work of the American Legacy Foundation, which will get $1.5 billion over the next five years from the national tobacco settlement to persuade teen-agers not to smoke. . .
With money and marketing sophistication health advocates could not dream of a few years ago, the ad campaign represents a new phase in the battle against smoking, according to experts on tobacco history.
"Now the tables are turned," said Allan M. Brandt, a medical historian at Harvard University who is writing a book on the history of smoking. . .
"We certainly share a goal with the American Legacy Foundation, which is to reduce youth smoking," said Mike Pfeil, vice president of communications for Philip Morris USA. "However, we have been disappointed with some of the ads and other approaches the foundation has taken." He included in his criticism the anti-tobacco Web site created for the foundation's "Truth" marketing campaign, thetruth.com.
"I think it's fair to say we don't think some of their approaches are consistent with the spirit of the settlement," he said.
Healton, the foundation president and former associate dean of the Columbia University School of Public Health, disagreed. She noted that in recent court testimony and advertising, tobacco executives have cited the foundation's work as evidence of their own changed attitudes.
"If we're doing such a bad job, they're sure taking a lot of credit for it," she said.
Jump to full article » |