Marketing & Media: Tobacco Giant to Cut Print Advertising in 2008

Source from:  The Business Journal of Phoenix - by Chris Casacchia Phoenix Business Journ 12/18/2007

In the wake of major criticism from attorneys general across the country, including Arizona AG Terry Goddard, over its marketing practices, RJR Reynolds Tobacco Co. is changing its advertising policy and will not tout its cigarette brands in U.S. newspapers and magazines next year. RJR, whose brands include Camel, Winston, Pall Mall and American Spirit, is the country's second-largest tobacco company. The largest, Philip Morris USA, stopped running U.S. print ads for its cigarette brands three years ago. RJR's advertising decision comes in the wake of an October meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General, which was attended by company executives. Goddard and Washington AG Rob McKenna, co-chairmen of the association's Tobacco Committee, sent the company a follow-up letter Nov. 21. In that letter to RJR, Goddard noted that a large, fold-out ad in the Nov. 15 issue of Rolling Stone magazine used cartoons to promote Camel cigarettes -- a violation of the master settlement agreement reached by 46 states and the major tobacco companies, which prohibits them from using cartoons to appeal to teenagers. The letter demanded that RJR confirm it would not continue to place such advertising. Enditem