INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Marketing in Mexico: “No fumar.”

Advantage Life Products Inc., the Laguna Hills marketer of products designed to help smokers kick the habit, will get that message across in Mexico next month, when it starts marketing its products south of the border.

Advantage Life has signed an agreement with several Mexican medical and pharmaceutical distributors that includes Spanish versions of its AIDS educational program, called Be Safe, and its CigArrest chewing gums, tablets and vitamins, which help smokers quit.

“This is living proof that the (U.S.-Mexico) free trade agreement will have definite advantages for local companies,” said Agustin Cisneros, president of Cisneros y Asociados, an Orange export management concern that arranged the deal. “I expect to see more Orange County companies benefit from the opening of the Mexican economy.”

Advantage Life’s new distributors are among Mexico’s largest medical and pharmaceutical marketers, Cisneros said. They include distributors Medical de Tijuana in Baja California; Autrey Mexico in Mexico City; and Distribuidora de Occidente in Guadalajara.