• The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Wednesday, January 24, 2007 12:15 PM

Japan Tobacco Ltd., the world's No. 3 tobacco maker, has launched a "Smoking Manners" campaign in an effort to help its consumers avoid being tagged as social pariahs.

Japan Tobacco is hoping to keep smoking acceptable in as many places as possible. The ads, which started on a limited scale in 2004, have recently rolled out on a wider basis, including new television spots promoting portable ashtrays.

The campaign urges smokers to stop doing the kinds of things that could reduce them to social-outcast status, from dropping cigarette butts in public places to blowing smoke in other people's faces. "Don't smoke in a crowd, coats are expensive," says one of 40 different print and outdoor ads that hang in Tokyo's subway and other public areas.

Anti-smoking activist Manabu Sakuta charges that the campaign is just a way to boost Japan Tobacco's image, which will, in turn, boost tobacco sales.

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