• Brandweek, Monday, May 14, 2007 10:20 AM

Anti-smoking groups have pulled off a split with Big Tobacco, pressuring one company to drop an ad campaign, but not getting all they wanted from Hollywood. Philip Morris USA will drop the radio and TV part of its "Talk. They'll Listen" effort after the American Legacy Foundation and other industry foes protested. An article in American Journal of Public Health contended that parent-focused ads actually increase the likelihood that teens will pick up the habit.

While researchers found no link between exposure to tobacco companies' prevention efforts and smoking behavior among teens, they did see a correlation between parent-targeted ads and lower recall, along with a belief that the harmful effects of smoking are exaggerated. "If the tobacco industry really wanted to help curb youth smoking, tobacco executives would agree to permanently pull these ads off the air," says Cheryl Healton, president and CEO of ALF.

Healton also claims the Motion Picture Association of America's recent announcement about smoking in films doesn't go far enough. MPAA will now slap an R rating on films with "depictions that glamorize smoking, or movies that feature pervasive smoking outside of an historic or other mitigating context...." But critics, including ALF, insist the MPAA assign an automatic R-rating for movies featuring characters that smoke.

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