Tabacco Advertising Self-Banning

Well, I don't know how about you guys, but I wouldn't be happy about any cigarettes brief (yes, I'm a non smoker).

And not even after the new "advertising rules" of the 3 major tabacco companies BAT (Lucky Strike etc), JT (Camel, Winston and others) and Philip Morris (every brand you can think of) agree on the International Tobacco Products Marketing Standards they're just now working on.

This "Standards" should among others consist of Creative bans (no models looking like under 25 appearing in ads, no celebrities, no association of smoking with athletic, sporting, professional or sexual suggest, and no ideas targeting the audience under 25) Print media bans (ads only in titles with at least 75 % of audience over 18, no use of publications where the number of young readers is 10 % or more of the country's youth population etc) and Other media bans (no sites closer than 100 meters to a school or other youth center, no TV/Inet ads unless "each person seeking access to the channel or program on which ad is place provides verification that he/she is an adult" - what ever that should mean - no product placing in movies, TV, theatre, music concerts and clubs etc) and though the representants of the 3 giants claim it's to withdraw teens from cigarettes ads, actually the main purpose seems to be avoiding further tabacco advertising bans (remember that since a few years in the EU (with some exeptions) it's illegal to sponsor an sports event for an tabacco company) and bad public attitudes against the cigarettes.


It is said that this is a confidential document and the Molochs didn't want to make it public before it's completed (and maybe not even then), but who would believe such a fairy tale?


Though the good will, I can only hardly bring myself to believe the idea that the International Tobacco Products Marketing Standards will cause any (not even considering big) financial loss.