In response to the pro-health movement's attempts to prevent tobacco use by children and assist adult smokers to quit, the industry portrays public health advocates as killjoys who want to prevent people from having fun. Typically, their public relations campaign equates smoking with freedom and criticism of smoking as totalitarianism.
RJR and Phillip Morris each spent millions in mid-1994 on a series of ads that ran in major national newspapers. All were designed to counter-attack the efforts of pro-health advocates, who had landed some blows to the industry's credibility earlier in the spring of 1994. The ads attempted to portray the industry as a friend to smokers and nonsmokers, while painting a scenario of "prohibition" and "big government interference" in people's lives.
This ad implies that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is a "nuisance," and that government efforts to restrict ETS exposure (smoking in public places) are unwarranted intrusions. The ad misleads the public regarding the ETS hazard and attempts to deflect attention from the tobacco industry's efforts to promote smoking. |
