Strange stuff

I just wrote in to a PR company telling them that my dream PR client would be a tobacco company.


It was part of a writing assessment and I could choose a client anywhere in the world from any industry. All I had to do was write up a Communications strategy to help them overcome an issue they are facing. I wrote about counterfeit cigarettes.

Do I really want to represent a tobacco company? Well for starters, it would present a unique challenge given the societal and legislative restrictions of today's society.

Ironically, I do not smoke, never have and never will.

I don't even particularly like cigarette smoke.

So why am I so interested in the tobacco industry?

I like it because it is in a sense, the underdog. Its surviving despite all the efforts by governments and anti-tobacco lobbies to stamp it out. I find its will to survive and its tenacity in the face of increasing adversity fascinating.

In fact, my thesis was about the huge shift in attitudes towards smoking over history.

I compared a 1946 Camel advertising campaign to one in 2007 to illustrate it.

The slogan of the 1946 campaign was "More Doctors Smoke Camels Than Any Other Cigarette". Cool, huh? We would never find anything like it in today's politically correct world.

I'll leave you with a couple of the ads to look at.















Compare these... to the ones from 2007 below. Immense difference, no? The ones in 2007 do not depict cigarettes or smokers and rely on the meanings brought to the ad by the visual images. These are products of the gradual legislative restrictions imposed on the tobacco industry.