Behind RJR’s Smoke Screen of Denial Is the Truth: Company Pitches Cigarettes to Teens

In the May 2 marketing column (“Cigarette Ads: A Matter of Conscience”), David Fishel, a vice president at RJR Nabisco, is quoted as saying, “The simple fact is, we don’t target our advertising appeal to young people.”

In Taiwan, the company recently scheduled a rock concert featuring a local teen idol and tickets were not for sale at any price. Instead, the admission fee was five empty packs of Winston cigarettes!

A sizable portion of the $2.4 billion the tobacco companies spend every year on advertising and promotion goes for ads in magazines with lots of teen-age readers, such as Glamour, Sports Illustrated and TV Guide. Tobacco companies spend over $1 billion a year on sporting events popular with adolescents, such as the Virginia Slims tennis tournaments, Newport ski races, Marlboro boat races and Winston Cup car races.

There also are items for the kids such as Marlboro candy cigarettes, Big League Chew bubble gum sold in pouches resembling those for chewing tobacco and Chaw powdered bubble gum sold in tins identical to those that contain snuff.

Come on, Mr. Fishel, don’t hand us such whoppers!

T. SHAPIN

Orange