NEWS RELEASE
For More Information Contact: Gary Ruskin (503) 235-8012
For Immediate Release: January 3rd, 2001
Groups Request Investigation of Philip Morris Schoolbook Covers
Commercial Alert, child advocates and public health organizations sent a letter today to National Association of Attorneys General President Andrew Ketterer, Attorney General of Maine, requesting an investigation of whether Philip Morris Cos. is luring children to smoking by distributing millions of textbook covers bearing the Philip Morris name. The letter follows.
Dear Attorney General Ketterer:
We write to request that the National Association of Attorneys General investigate whether Philip Morris Cos. is marketing tobacco products to children directly or indirectly, in violation of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between certain tobacco companies and state officials, by distributing free Philip Morris textbook covers to millions of schoolchildren.
According to news accounts, Primedia’s Cover Concepts has sent out 13-15 million of the Philip Morris book covers, and intends to distribute 13 million more. (1) The Philip Morris book jackets are ostensibly a part of an anti-smoking educational campaign. However, Advertising Age notes that one textbook cover’s design “looks alarmingly like a colorful pack of cigarettes."(2) More importantly, the textbook covers promote to children the Philip Morris brand name, which is synonymous with tobacco and smoking.
Branded book jackets are an effective way to increase brand recognition among schoolchildren. According to Advertising Age, one market research study found that schoolchildren had an extremely high brand recall of up to 74% for brands promoted on book covers distributed by Cover Concepts. (3) When Philip Morris promotes its name among children, it increases its brand recognition, and builds a relationship with them that can help sell tobacco products. This is especially troubling given that Marlboro, a Philip Morris brand, is the #1 brand of cigarettes among children.
At a minimum, by promoting its brand name among schoolchildren, Philip Morris appears to be indirectly promoting tobacco products to them, which violates the Master Settlement Agreement’s broad prohibition against marketing tobacco to children:
“No Participating Manufacturer may take any action, directly or indirectly, to target Youth within any Settling State in the advertising, promotion or marketing of Tobacco Products, or take any action the primary purpose of which is to initiate, maintain or increase the incidence of Youth smoking within any Settling State.”
Some educators are rightly worried about whether these Philip Morris book covers will encourage children to use tobacco products. For example, on November 27, Delaine Eastin, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, encouraged California county and district superintendents to “thwart this attempt by the Philip Morris Tobacco Company to reach kids with their message.” (4) We strongly urge you to determine whether the distribution Philip Morris textbook covers to schoolchildren is a direct or indirect promotion of tobacco products in violation of the Master Settlement Agreement. If so, we urge you to take appropriate action to recall the Philip Morris textbook covers, halt any additional dissemination of these covers, and to take whatever other measures are needed to safeguard the health of schoolchildren from marketing depredations of Philip Morris.
Sincerely,
Enola G. Aird, Director, Motherhood Project, Institute for American Values
John R. Garrison, CEO, American Lung Association
George Gerbner, President and Founder, Cultural Environment Movement; Dean Emeritus, Annenberg School of Communication
Bill Godshall, Executive Director, SmokeFree Pennsylvania
Peter Hanauer, Past President, Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights
Michael F. Jacobson, co-author, Marketing Madness
Sut Jhally, Founder and Executive Director, The Media Education Foundation
Jean Kilbourne, author, Deadly Persuasion
Diane Levin, Professor of Education, Wheelock College; author, Remote Control Childhood
David O. Lewis, M.D., Executive Director, Health Advocacy Group of Southside VA
Susan Linn, EdD, Associate Director, Media Center of the Judge Baker Children’s Center
Bob McCannon, Executive Director, New Mexico Media Literacy Project
Robert McChesney, Research Associate Professor, U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; author, Rich Media, Poor Democracy
Jim Metrock, President, Obligation, Inc.
Edmund Mierzwinski, Consumer Program Director, U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG)
Mark Crispin Miller, Professor of Media Ecology, New York University
Alex Molnar, Director, Center for the Analysis of Commercialism in Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Diane Morrison, Ph.D., Research Professor, School of Social Work, University of Washington
Kathryn Mulvey, Executive Director, INFACT
Jeannette Noltenius, Executive Director, Latino Council on Alcohol and Tobacco
Gary Ruskin, Director, Commercial Alert
Juliet Schor, Senior Lecturer on Women’s Studies, Harvard University; author, The Overspent American
Buddy Smith, American Family Association, Asst. to AFA Pres. Donald E. Wildmon
Inger Stole, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Advertising, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
David Walsh, Ph.D. President, National Institute on Media and the Family
Robert Weissman, Co-Director, Essential Action
M. Cass Wheeler, CEO, American Heart Association
cc: Attorney General Janet Napolitano, State of Arizona
Attorney General Bill Lockyer, State of California
Attorney General Tom Miller, State of Iowa
Attorney General Jennifer M. Granholm, State of Michigan
Attorney General Mike Moore, State of Mississippi
Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp, State of North Dakota
Attorney General Betty D. Montgomery, State of Ohio
Attorney General Drew Edmondson, State of Oklahoma
Attorney General D. Michael Fisher, State of Pennsylvania
Attorney General Paul Summers, State of Tennessee
Attorney General John Cornyn, State of Texas
Attorney General William H. Sorrell, State of Vermont
Attorney General Christine Gregoire, State of Washington
Attorney General Eliott Spitzer, State of New York
Attorney General James E. Doyle, State of Wisconsin
Representative Henry Waxman
David Kessler, Dean, Yale University School of Medicine
Mark E. Greenwold, Esq., Chief Counsel for Tobacco, NAAG
William C. Lieblich, Esq., Enforcement Counsel for Tobacco, NAAG
Footnotes
(1) Martha Groves, “Tobacco Firm’s Gift Viewed as a Marketing Smoke Screen.” Los Angeles Times, November 29, 2000. Attachment #1 also includes Peter Simon, “Cigarette Maker Criticized For Gift of Textbook Covers.” The Buffalo News, October 18, 2000. Felice Freyer, “Book Covers Cloud Message on Tobacco Use, Critics Say.” Providence Journal-Bulletin, September 23, 2000.
(2) “Blown Cover.” Advertising Age, September 11, 2000. See Attachment #2.
(3) Jane Hodges, “Schools Uncover New Ad Niche,” Advertising Age, September 11, 1995. See Attachment #3.
(4) Correspondence from Delaine Eastin, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction to County and District Superintendents, November 27, 2000. See Attachment #4.
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Commercial Alert opposes the excesses of commercialism, advertising and marketing. Commercial Alert’s website is at http://www.commercialalert.org/.
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