Judge rules against RJR
So what we’ve suspected for a long time has finally been confirmed by the US courts – Big Tobacco’s magazine ads clearly market to kids and violate the Master Settlement Agreement. The series of “cartoon” ads were found in Rolling Stone Magazine. Check out the article below from the Winston-Salem Journal.
Now if we could only get the Prime Minister to keep his promise to “ban all tobacco advertising and promotion which may be viewed or read by youth.” Feel free to email him to remind him.
RJR ad from 2007 violated settlement, judge says – Winston-Salem Journal
May 15, 2009
Richard Craver
Pennsylvania ruling stems from lawsuit filed by nine states over cartoon images
A Pennsylvania judge ruled yesterday that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. violated the Master Settlement Agreement with its involvement in a 2007 magazine pullout that contained cartoon images.
The ruling by Judge William Manfredi of Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia, was in regard to the nine-page section that Reynolds sponsored in the Nov. 15, 2007, issue of Rolling Stone.
Reynolds said it plans to appeal the ruling.
Rolling Stone ran four pages of Camel cigarette ads as bookends to five pages of editorial content about independent, “or indie,” rock music. The ads promoted a now-defunct Camel Web site — www.thefarmrocks.com — aimed at adult consumers.
Attorneys general in nine states sued Reynolds over the advertisement in December 2007. They accused Reynolds of violating the 1998 agreement between 46 states and tobacco manufacturers.
What drew the lawsuits was that the editorial content on the “Indie Rock Universe” spread had a cartoon look. The attorneys general said they consider the pullout as one presentation rather than separate advertising and editorial content.
The day after the filing of the lawsuits, Reynolds voluntarily stopped promotions for the marketing campaign.
All of the lawsuits involve two claims. One is an adjacency claim, which focuses on the placement of the Ca mel ads in relation to the magazine’s editorial content containing the cartoon images. The second claim is that the advertisement violated the consent decree of the agreement.
Manfredi ruled against Reynolds in both claims.
According to The Associated Press, Manfredi ordered Reynolds to either pay a fine of $302,000 or run a full-page ad with a youth-oriented, anti-smoking theme in Rolling Stone for those issues distributed in Pennsylvania. The option was requested by the attorneys general as part of their lawsuits.
A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office said that the decision is a full victory. The other states involved in the lawsuit are California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New York, Ohio and Washington.
Reynolds said it does not believe that the advertisement was in violation of the agreement. The company also said it was disappointed in the magazine’s presentation of the editorial conten t for the pullout, particularly since its advertising personnel approached Reynolds about sponsoring the pullout.
David Howard, a spokesman for Reynolds, said that judges in Maine and Washington state ruled in the company’s favor on both claims.
He said that the company is appealing a ruling in Ohio regarding the adjacency claim and a ruling in California regarding violation of the agreement. He said that no damages were awarded in the rulings involving those states.
“We don’t believe the Pennsylvania judge’s decision is in line with the evidence presented in the case,” Howard said. “Nor is it in line with decisions rendered in Maine and Washington on these claims.”
At the time of the lawsuits, Tom Corbett, the attorney general for Pennsylvania, said that his lawsuit was “part of what we hope becomes a nationwide legal action seeking more than $100 million in sanctions against R.J. Reynolds for viol ating the cartoon ban.” The attorneys general requested fines of $100 for each magazine distributed within their states’ borders, as well as $100 combined for each visit to the Camel Web site for indie rock.
Reynolds did not advertise its cigarette brands in newspapers and consumer magazines in 2008 and has not so far in 2009. It has run ads for its Camel Snus smokeless products in consumer magazines this year.
Source: Winston-Salem Journal
