OH THOSE TOBACCO MARKETERS

OH THOSE TOBACCO MARKETERS!

James R. Rosenfield

September 2003

Oh those tobacco marketers!

Banished from television and other mass media, their necessity to manipulate by other means has mothered myriad inventions, from product placements in movies to signage at car races.

The most meaningful invention has perhaps taken place in the realm of direct marketing, from RJ Reynolds' original database, one of the amoral glories of a decade ago, to the elaborate, expensive, and -yes! --artistic direct mail creative work now being engineered by Philip Morris in the U.S.

I make a point of the "artistic" dimension, because American direct mail suffers from almost universally poor design and production. When you are mailing billions of pieces a year, you stint on the aesthetics. But since government regulations have inadvertently saved the cigarette guys billions of dollars, they can plow the bucks into dynamite creative work.

In spite of this unintended consequence, I am firmly in favor of keeping cigarette advertising out of the mainstream, particularly television. TV is so powerfully hypnotic in persuading people to do things that are bad for them (eat fast food, drink too much beer, drive SUVs) that I shudder to think of the impact of cigarette spots in the 21st Century, when the sheer production value of so many commercials creates an immediate suspension of disbelief.

The modest persuasiveness of direct mail does less damage, full of sleight of hand though it be.

Sleight of hand? May I guide you through a few recent Philip Morris executions, so to speak?

The envelope looks like a field or a mud fence or a Dubuffet painting…anyway, it looks earthy. When you remove the contents a bucolic scene of farm buildings appears in the envelope's window, embraced by a green landscape. It is - there is no other word - lovely. The flap of the envelope, normally unadorned, in this case has a photo of the sky, a beautifully expansive big Western U.S. sky. What attention to detail, what sparing of no expense, what a windfall for the agency lucky and untroubled enough to do this kind of work!

"IF YOU'RE FAST, YOU'RE THERE…CALL 1-866-HEADWEST" reads the copy, with "MARLBORO RANCH" appearing faintly in the background.

When you open up the flyer - that's all there is inside the envelope - you're greeted by four wonderfully photographed folds, headlined 'HIKE…BIKE…RAFT…RIDE," all of them things you can do at the Marlboro Ranch. And to go there free you just have to "BE ONE OF THE FIRST 100 IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TO CALL 1-866-HEADWEST JANUARY 18TH, 2003 AND YOU & A FRIEND ARE THERE…CALL BETWEEN 12:00 PM AND 3:00 PM…"

An elegant…what would you call this, a contest? Anyway, winning would seem more a matter of timing and motivation then luck. With some initiative you can have all of your friends call, and then hold your own little pool. What fun!

There's no sleight of hand in the contest itself, it is in fact wonderfully straightforward.

The sleight of hand lies in the imagery, the persistent ability of the cigarette marketers to link their product to healthy things like the great outdoors. Smoke enough Marlboros in the real world, Charley, and your hiking and biking abilities will become pretty compromised!

Another mailing has an extravagantly colorful outer envelope that looks like a Bruce Nauman video piece. Do art directors who work on cigarettes haunt museums on their days off, as a mode of forgetting what they do the rest of the time?

Inside, there's a tight close-up of a Marlboro cigarette, languorously lying in an ashtray on top of what appears to be a retro radio, a hazy Marlboro pack slightly in the background. The cigarette looks great! It reminds you of all the Hollywood glamour of cigarette smoking, of Bogart and James Dean, of your first cigarette when you were 16 or 17. (These days on the beach in healthy, happy Southern California I see upscale 13 and 14 year olds puffing away. So much for youth anti-smoking campaigns!)

The cigarette is unabashedly sexual, both phallic and feminine, like a Picasso from the mid-1930s.

Tucked into an opening two inches from the tip of the seductive cigarette is a sheaf of coupons. Tried and true, to be sure, but ever successful. And suggestive as all get out!

Boxes are expensive, and used more often in business-to-business mailings, with their limited quantities, than in consumer mailings. But if you're Philip Morris, your pockets are deep, and the stakes in keeping smokers habituated to your brand are high indeed.

The tobacco companies take seriously their legal obligation not to market to people under 21, which gives them an opportunity to ask customers for their birthdays. This in turn gives them the chance to do birthday mailings, always a great relationship-builder. Combine a box and a birthday, and what do you end up with? A birthday gift, of course.

The box is brown, illustrated with faint but artistic red and blue smudges. Inside the box is another box, with an illustration of stampeding cattle, and the copy "WHEN THE LITTLEST NOISE CAN START A STAMPEDE…"

Then, when you open the box, "YOU DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO KEEP YOUR STOMACH FROM GROWLING…HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROM MARLBORO."

The gift is a pack of "ROWDY BULL BEEF JERKY, " a food about as good for you as cigarettes are. I was afraid of taste-testing the jerky myself, and gave a piece to Paloma, my Golden Retriever, who will eat anything. She spat it out.

But it's the thought that counts, and what great and elaborate execution we have here. The strange emphasis on internal functioning, though, is an example of the occasional unconscious self-subversion you find in cigarette promotions. Tobacco marketers should avoid reminding people that they have inner organs.

Yet another box has splotches of blue on a red background, like a Gerhard Richter painting or perhaps Clifford Styll. You can't fault the taste of these art directors! Inside there's a flyer with a great fiery photo of meats and vegetables on the barbecue, and a book, "MARLBORO CHILI ROUNDUP FLAVOR IT UP…50 Winning Recipes…One Burning Question…"

The burning question? "WHICH ONE TO MAKE FIRST?"

The recipes are pure Americana, "Eric's Wooden Parrot Chili…Reno Rob's Chili…You're Not Man Enough Chili…Cal-Tex Chili…Ballistic Two-Bean Chili…Mike's Black Eye Chili…"

The book itself is spiral bound to lie flat, quite handy for a cookbook. Artistic photos elegantly and elaborately illustrate each recipe: Mexican hats shot from above, in an arrangement that makes them look abstract ("Thick & Hearty Chicken & Chorizo Chili")…old California and Texas license plates ("Cal-Tex Chili")…an amazing photo of desert mountains at sunrise, the picture taken from an angle between two cacti ("Chilly Chili")…a bucket filled with chili peppers, looking like a Chardin still life ("Brown's Well Rounded Chili")…and many, many, many more.

The sleight of hand here, as always, revolves around the association of cigarettes with healthy, wholesome, fun activities.

From a Marlboro marketing standpoint the great thing is the book. It has permanence. It is too useful and handsome to throw out. But also, and slyly, it evidently slides into a regulatory nether world where it need not bear the surgeon general's warning!

Oh, those tobacco marketers.