Philip Morris insults consumers with new ad campaign

New York, December 12, 2000-Philip Morris, the nation's largest tobacco company, today announced that it would launch a new national television ad campaign codenamed the "You're killing yourselves, you idiots!" campaign.

"We're basically experimenting with a type of advertising that has never been done before, not only in the tobacco industry, but in any industry," said Ellen Merlo, Senior Vice President, Corporate affairs. "It will be interesting to see how this turns out."

The New Ad Campaign

The commercials, set to begin airing on December 17 on all major networks and cable TV, will target both youths and adults. The commercials will all close with the company's new slogan "Philip Morris: killing idiots like you every day."

"We hope this will be the next 'Joe Camel' in cigarette ads," exclaimed Ellen Merlo.

Merlo said that the new commercials will most resemble public service announcements trying to discourage cigarette use. "These public service announcements have been running on television for years, but we still have smoking sections in restaurants, ashtrays installed in cars and fresh cigarette buds littered all over the place. In other words, they don't seem to be having a negative effect on the tobacco industry. So our marketing guys had one of their weekly brainstorming sessions and came up with the idea that we should try to use this stuff."

Ellen Merlo

When asked whether or not these ads might possibly have a negative effect on Philip Morris, Merlo replied, "Of course, we went over possible disadvantages of the new campaign, and we see it like this: we can't imagine how the government could give us all these [edited] lawsuits if we're telling people that they're killing themselves, and hey, we've got more dough than Bill Gates-we've got nothing to lose!"

Industry analysist Tom Humbert, president of the National Smokers' Alliance in Washington, is skeptical. "This looks pretty risky," he commented. "I mean, not only are they insulting their consumers, they're using the disadvantages of their product to advertise it. This is like Ronald McDonald saying, 'Hey kids, wanna have a bypass surgery?' They really should have put more thought into this."

Two commercials have so far been released. The first commercial, targeting adults, features men and women dining at a high-class restaurant all smoking and having an enjoyable dinner. All of a sudden, one of the participants begins violently coughing, makes gasping noises, curls up and dies. The others, after a brief silence, continue their dinner as if nothing happened.

Tom Humbert

The second commercial, targeting youths, was quite similar to the first. A couple of kids who appear to be in their pre-teens are smoking outside of a school. One of the children begins coughing violently like the man in the first commercial. She then proceeds to hurl all over herself, begins gasping for breath, pulls a pen out of her book bag, and jams it into the center of the lower part of the front of her neck (where some smokers have a hole for breathing). This action restores her breathing, and she resumes smoking. This commercial will air mostly on Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network, as well as on networks when they air children's shows.

Both commercials end with a voiceover reading the slogan.

Philip Morris has future plans to distribute hats and T-shirts sporting the new slogan, going against government-imposed sanctions.

Humbert predicts that, depending on the success of this campaign, other tobacco companies are likely to follow suit and launch similar advertisements.

"I guess that we're all hoping to find out what happens," remarked Humbert.

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