TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/042390/0423208.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 10.0 KB | 194 lines

                                                                                BUSINESS, Page 60

Volunteer Vice Squad


The outcry over tobacco and alcohol marketing reaches a fever
pitch

By JANICE CASTRO -- Reported by Mary Cronin/New York and
William McWhirter/Chicago


    The executives in the television commercial are grim. "We
need more smokers!" growls the tough-talking boss of a tobacco
firm. "Every day 2,000 Americans stop smoking. And another 1,100
also quit. Actually, technically, they die. That means that this
business needs 3,000 fresh new volunteers every day. So forget
about all of that cancer, heart disease, emphysema, stroke
stuff! Gentlemen, we're not in this business for our health!"
And with that, the businessmen erupt in gales of sinister
laughter.

    Shown on TV stations throughout California starting last
week, the devastatingly direct commercial was the opening salvo
in the state's new $28.6 million advertising war against
smoking. The California blitz is designed to counter the slick
marketing efforts of tobacco firms with equally sophisticated
TV, radio and newspaper ads. The goal: to persuade 5 million of
the state's 7 million smokers to kick the habit by the end of
the decade. Most ironic of all is that the campaign will be
financed by smokers through a new 25 cents-a-pack cigarette tax.
Says Thomas Lauria, a spokesman for the Tobacco Institute: "Now
smokers are paying for their own harassment."

    The California offensive opens another chapter in the
growing clamor of public opposition to the marketing of alcohol
as well as tobacco. The emotional ground swell against the
advertising of vices is fueled by a powerful combination of
health consciousness, consumer activism and community pride. In
New York City, Chicago and Dallas local residents have been
whitewashing inner-city billboards to obliterate the images of
such products as cigarettes and Cognac.

    Meanwhile, parents and health experts have blasted the
sponsorship of sports events by tobacco and brewing companies.
Louis Sullivan, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human
Services, has attacked cigarette sponsorship of such athletic
events as Virginia Slims tennis. In its new contract with CBS,
the National Collegiate Athletic Association reduced alcohol
advertising during its postseason games from 90 seconds to 60
seconds an hour. Said an N.C.A.A. spokesman: "We had gotten
widespread feedback from parents, school administrators and the
general public that alcohol was the No. 1 problem."

    The outcry has prompted a growing sentiment in Congress to
curb the advertising of legal vices. Legislators are working on
72 separate bills concerning tobacco products, while another
flurry of proposals would impose new restrictions on beer, wine
and spirits. Since last November federal law has required
warning labels on all containers of alcoholic beverages sold in
the U.S. Expanding on that approach, legislation sponsored by
Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee and Representative Joe Kennedy
of Massachusetts would require spoken health warnings in all TV
and radio ads for beer and wine, including toll-free telephone
numbers that would provide callers with information on how to
cope with alcoholism. The legislation has garnered broad
bipartisan support, in part because of studies showing that
alcohol abuse costs the U.S. an estimated $136 billion every
year. The annual health cost of smoking is about $52 billion.

    Congress has been spurred to action by explosive grass-roots
campaigns. Consumer activists seem ready to pounce on almost any
"target marketing" by tobacco and liquor manufacturers, a
reference to advertising that is tailored to appeal to
particular groups. Earlier this year, RJR Nabisco canceled plans
for two new cigarette brands -- Uptown, aimed at blacks, and
Dakota, which targeted uneducated young women -- in the face of
heated opposition from consumer-advocacy groups.

    The RJR skirmishes galvanized inner-city outrage toward
target marketing. In New York City the Rev. Calvin Butts of the
Abyssinian Baptist Church has led whitewashing expeditions
through the streets of Harlem to cover up billboards promoting
such products. In Chicago a mysterious crusader who calls
himself Mandrake has been painting over similar billboards in
black and Hispanic neighborhoods. Several billboard companies
have responded by voluntarily limiting the placement of certain
ads. Since January the Patrick Media Group of Scranton, Pa., has
eliminated its ads for cigarettes and liquor near schools and
churches in 15 major cities.

    The alcohol-fueled rites of spring break are sparking fresh
criticism of aggressive college marketing by brewers. The beer
companies insist that they target only students who are legally
old enough to drink. But because the legal drinking age is 21
in all 50 states, many students fall under the limit. Brewers
often engage in promotions that fail to distinguish among
students of different ages. Miller Brewing, for example,
sponsors Friday afternoon beer bashes for 2,000 students at the
University of Colorado in Boulder. Until local high schools
complained that their students were tanking up at the free
pours, university officials made little effort to screen
participants.

    To deflect criticism and forestall restrictive new laws,
some brewers are beginning to promote moderation with fresh
vigor. Anheuser-Busch, which will spend some $325 million
selling its top-ranked Budweiser and other brands this year, has
spent $40 million during the past 18 months on its "Know When
to Say When" campaign. While the firm broadcast 21 beer ads
during the past N.C.A.A. final-four series, for example, it also
aired 17 "responsible consumption" messages. As students flocked
to spring-break sites in recent weeks, the brewers were
advertising a "party smart" theme. In its tent at Daytona
Beach, Fla., Miller posted signs reading THINK WHEN YOU DRINK.

    Suggestions of restraint, though, were easily overwhelmed
by party-hearty marketing themes. In the Miller tent, the
company was giving away neon baseball caps to anyone who could
show proof of purchase for two cases of the beer. Up the beach,
Anheuser-Busch had installed a 20-ft.-tall inflatable six-pack
of Budweiser. Poolside at Howard Johnson, Bacardi was
advertising rum-and-orange-juice cocktails for 25 cents. Read
a marquee outside one beachfront bar: PARTY 'TIL YOU PUKE.

    While brewers and distillers may try to put a sober face on
spring break, the rite has become a national symbol of teenage
alcohol abuse. Students interviewed in Daytona Beach last week
said they planned to drink as much as a case of beer every day.
Health experts and worried parents blame overzealous advertisers
for such youthful excess. Studies cited by the National Council
on Alcoholism show that American children see 100,000 TV
commercials for beer before they reach age 18, and usually take
their first drink by age twelve.

    Brewers and distillers fear that their critics may be as
successful as the antismoking groups that have sharply curbed
tobacco marketing over the past 25 years. After requiring
warning labels on cigarette packages in 1965, Congress in 1971
banned radio and TV cigarette ads. Says John Ferrell, chief
creative officer of the Hill, Holliday agency: "I was working
on the Marlboro campaign when the TV-advertising ban came down.
I think the same thing is going to happen with beer and wine.
It is inevitable." Brewers are especially worried about curbs
on broadcast ads, since their primary target group of young men
is best reached through TV.

    The movement is gaining force in Europe as well. The French
government plans to ban all tobacco advertising by 1993 and to
restrict alcohol ads to print media. The European Community has
called for a ban on TV commercials for tobacco products. Asia
has generally been slower to put limits on tobacco and alcohol,
but a health movement is beginning to spring up at least partly
in response to the arrival of U.S. tobacco marketers.

    The new outcry presents a dilemma for cigarette makers,
brewers and distillers. If they fight the tide too strenuously,
they risk further damage to their public image. But if they
reduce their advertising profile too readily, their outlets for
marketing could be extremely limited. In their defense, tobacco-
and alcohol-industry groups contend that curbs on advertising
violate their First Amendment rights to advertise products that
are, after all, legal. "These warning-label bills are just
another attempt to get around that," says Lauria, the Tobacco
Institute spokesman.

    The recent outburst against vice marketing seems motivated
by a larger social movement, suddenly abloom at the turn of the
decade, in which citizens are demanding more socially
responsible behavior from individuals and corporations alike.
In a fashion, the spirit of the war on drugs has carried over
to legal but abusable substances.

    Alcohol marketers say the association is unfair. "The
advertising issue is primarily an attempt to deal with today's
drug abuse, but I'm afraid it misses the mark," says Jeff
Becker, a spokesman for the Beer Institute.

    To some extent, blaming advertisers for selling products
that society has been unable to control by other means is like
shooting the messenger. Parents and educators should bear
considerable responsibility for instilling sensible notions of
behavior. But marketers of alcohol and tobacco have been so
effective in making their pitch that society feels the voices
must be toned down and balanced. Other states are likely to
follow California's lead, multiplying the number of
sophisticated challenges to commercial pitches for alcohol and
cigarettes. At the same time, other alcohol producers may follow
Anheuser-Busch's lead, devoting substantial resources to
promoting moderation. If so, the grass-roots movement may go a
long way toward achieving its goals with the help of the very
producers it opposes.