R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. Sanctioned for Ad in Rolling Stone

Source from:  The Legal Intelligencer 05/15/2009

A Philadelphia judge has ruled that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. violated the Master Settlement Agreement between big tobacco companies and 46 state attorneys general by publishing advertisements in Rolling Stone that contained cartoon imagery. Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge William J. Manfredi sanctioned R.J. Reynolds more than $300,000 for running the cartoon advertisements. The judge ordered the tobacco company to run a full-page, antismoking and youth-oriented advertisement in Rolling Stone to be created in consultation with the U.S. Center for Disease Control's Division of Tobacco Prevention and Control and the state attorney general. Once the corrective advertisement is published, the monetary sanction is to be purged, Manfredi ordered in Commonwealth v. Philip Morris Inc . Manfredi also ordered the company to pay counsel fees and prosecution costs to the state Attorney General's Office. "The purpose of the cartoon prohibition in the [master settlement agreement] MSA and the consent decree was to avoid the inducement of young people to use tobacco products which such advertising and promotion causes. The damages resulting from the violation was the exposure of such youth to the prohibited advertisement/promotion," according to the opinion. Manfredi found that R.J. Reynolds' publication of Camel ads in a section promoting indie rock groups in the magazine's Nov. 15, 2007, edition involved cartoons and violated the Master Settlement Agreement's ban on using cartoons to advertise to young people. In 1998, a settlement was reached between several tobacco companies and multiple jurisdictions in a lawsuit aiming to bar marketing of tobacco products to minors and to recover medical costs from treating diseases stemming from the use of tobacco. The offending nine-page advertisement/editorial section involved R.J. Reynolds' Camel's "The Farm"campaign to promote independent rock bands and was published in Rolling Stone 's 40th anniversary issue. Manfredi's decision described how the advertising and editorial graphics in the section included a woman's head and torso with a cartoon drawing on her arm, bird in her hair and surrounded by flowers; flying saucers; a farm tractor with film spools for wheels; birds and farm animals; celestial bodies; and other images. R.J. Reynolds argued that the images that were part of the Camel advertising on pages 1, 3, 4 and 9 were not cartoons and that the pages that had cartoons on pages 2, 5 and 8 were the editorial content of Rolling Stone, Manfredi said. Manfredi also said R.J. Reynolds presented experts that sought to impose an unreasonably narrow definition of a cartoon. "None of the definitions of cartoons offered by the R.J. Reynolds' witnesses capture the diversity that is the cartoon in American culture," Manfredi wrote. "To paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart, we know a cartoon when we see it, and Camel's the Farm ad pages contain cartoons." Manfredi also said that the entire section formed an integrated whole with a common theme, so R.J. Reynolds could not argue its ads were not linked to the cartoon elements of the magazine's editorial content. Nils Frederiksen, deputy press secretary for the Attorney General's Office, said the judge's rulings sent a message to other tobacco companies about the risks they face in trying to get around the ban on youth-oriented tobacco product marketing. Frederiksen said R.J. Reynolds' Camel advertisement was one of the most egregious violations of the ban on cartoons in tobacco advertising. David Howard, an R.J. Reynolds spokesman, said the company plans to appeal Manfredi's decision. "We don't believe the judge's decision is in line with the evidence presented in the case," Howard said. Howard also said that Justice Joseph Jabar of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court and Judge William L. Downing of Superior Court of Washington for King County have made contrary rulings about the Rolling Stone advertising, so Manfredi's decision is not in line with other states. Enditem