• Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, Friday, November 12, 2010 10:59 AM

Camel cigarette marketing seems like one of those zombies in the movies that keeps reviving itself for yet another round of controversy despite all the protruding stakes in its heart. Remember the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in the early '90s that found that more children aged 5 and 6 could identify the humpbacked smoker than they could Mickey Mouse?

R.J. Reynolds, of course, has always maintained that Joe Camel was targeted to adult males, and now it is extending its reach to "hipsters" in "the most famous hipster neighborhood," Joseph De Avila reports. That would be Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Oh, and nine other "cool" places around the country such as Seattle and Austin and the Haight that are part of a 10-week "Camel Break Free" promotion with a contest that asks players to guess what city the camel will be in each week.

Break Free of what? "It's about last call, a sloppy kiss goodbye and a safe saunter to a rock show in an abandoned building," says the back of a pack of Camel Blue, courtesy of the New York Daily News. Who wrote this stuff, daddy-o? Maynard G. Krebs? 

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