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Disponible en français ici
November 27, 2003
"Bully Tactics Won't
Work" -
DOCTORS' GROUP DECRIES TOBACCO INDUSTRY INTIMIDATION.
(Ottawa) - Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada
joined several other Canadian health groups in condemning the attempt by
the three multinational tobacco companies operating in Canada to silence
their critics. These three companies - Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd., JTI-Macdonald
Ltd., and Rothmans, Bensons and Hedges Ltd. have all threatened the
director of a not-for-profit agency l'Association régionale du Sport étudiant de
Québec/Chaudière Appalaches - ARSEQCA) with legal action. They have also
threatened the advertising company and web-site providers which
developed the material on the agency's anti-tobacco web-site, De Facto.
 "The tobacco companies have spent millions of dollars in
legal fees arguing that restrictions on tobacco advertising are an
unfair infringement on their freedom of speech," said Cynthia Callard,
PSC's executive director. "Hypocritically, they have asked these
same lawyers to intimidate a health group into relinquishing its freedom
of expression."
Between October 2, 2003 and October 24, 2003 each of the
three companies has pressured the Quebec youth and sports group, ARSEQCA to remove so-called offensive material from its web-site
(www.defacto.ca).
Rothmans Benson and Hedges complained of salary
disclosure and unflattering advertisements.
On October 2, Rothmans Benson and Hedges sent a
"Notice" (available by clicking
here), demanding the sports group
remove the following two items from its website:
-
the advertisement "Is there anything worth celebrating"
(The French text can be roughly translated as: "By smoking 475,000 young
Canadians between 10 and 19 years old contribute to the profits of the
tobacco companies. Is that worth celebrating?"
(view the television ad in Quicktime format by clicking
here).
(listen to the three radio advertisements in their original French here.
first.
second.
third.
)
-
 Rothmans
Benson and Hedges' Chief Executive officer's name (John Barnett) and his
salary (which is reported to and made public by the Ontario Securities
Commission as $744,357 salary, with a bonus of $499,599 and a Long Term
Incentive Plan payment of $1,261,277). That's more than $12,000
per day.
(view the OSC filing
here).
JTI-MacDonald complained that De Facto revealed the
names of its executives and the fact that it targeted youth in its
marketing.
Three weeks after Rothmans demanded a retraction from de
Facto, JTI-MacDonald sent its own rambling and vaguely worded complaint to De Facto (available by
clicking here). JTI-Macdonald's lawyers demanded that the web-site not
include the name of its company or its officers (Andrew Shannon and
Michel Poirier). It also demanded that all statements regarding
the targeting of youth ('les jeunes') be retracted.
This was in spite of a ruling against the company by Judge Andre Denis
who reviewed thousands of pages of internal marketing documents from JTI-MacDonald
and other companies. Judge Denis said in his ruling at paragraph
527:
"Fact: There is incontrovertible evidence that advertising and sponsorship
encourage people, especially adolescents to consumer tobacco products."
(View Judge Denis' entire ruling here in
English or in
French)
JTI objected to a citation in the report
from the government's marketing expert witness, Richard Pollay.
On page 16 of his report, Pollay cited a JTI-Macdonald document which
stated, "New smokers
are critical to continued growth in the market.").
(Professor Pollay's complete expert witness report
is available here - D57 How Cigarette Promotion works).
JTI-MacDonald lawyers complain that this quote was taken
out of context. As counter-argument they provide their own
out-of-context quotes from the same document. The entire document
is available here
(D226. JTI Competitive Business Development). The
citation given by Rick Pollay can be found on page 14 of this document
and the citation given by the JTI-MacDonald lawyers can be found on page
48.
Another example of a JTI-Macdonald document showing this
company targeting young adults in its marketing efforts can be
downloaded
here. (D-175 -
Export A Family Brand Positioning Statement).
Judge Denis was not fooled by tobacco industry
counter-argument and the use of isolated out-of-context quotes. He
reviewed these documents in their entirety and dozens of others too, and
then concluded in paragraph 122 of his judgement:
"The court does not believe that cigarette advertising is solely aimed
at smokers over 19 years of age. All the advertising campaigns
contain elements that are attractive to the young people who are the
industry's future. The tobacco companies are well aware that most
people start smoking between the ages of 12 and 18 and systematically
target this susceptible age groups with its advertising and marketing."
(View Judge Denis' entire ruling here in
English or in
French)
Imperial Tobacco complained that De Facto insinuated that it promotes
tobacco to youth.
In a
four-page threatening letter dated October 24, 2003 (available
here),
Imperial Tobacco's lawyers said they wanted de Facto to "cease
immediately all publication and distribution, in all forms, that
insinuate or affirm that our clients illegally promote the sale of
tobacco products to children and adolescents."
Hundreds
of Imperial Tobacco documents have been made public over the past decade
which show that the company's marketing department repeatedly studied
the behaviour of children as young as 13.
Even among
the smaller selection of documents made public during the recent trial
of the Tobacco Act, there were several which showed Imperial Tobacco's
interest in young smokers. Here is an example:
“Marketing
activities have historically been and continue to be targeted at younger
smokers due to their greater propensity to change brands.”
(The citation is from page
50 of D-176, “Trademark strategies and projects – 1995
– Market strategy and development, Imperial Tobacco. View the
entire document here).
"De Facto set out to expose the truth about big
tobacco," said Callard "and to do so in a way that captured the
attention of young Quebecers who might otherwise by seduced into tobacco
addiction by the heavy marketing of these big tobacco companies."
Callard said that De Facto's strategy was reminiscent of
the successful Florida Truth Campaign
(link here) and the Minnesota
Target Market Campaign (link here). "Like these effective U.S.
campaigns, De Facto provides young people with the tools they need to
protect themselves from tobacco industry marketing."
"The attempts by these three bullying tobacco companies
to intimidate a small and poorly-resourced youth group should only
strengthen the public view that these companies do not conduct their
business in socially responsible or ethical ways," concluded Callard.
To illustrate the inappropriateness of the tobacco
industry legal threats against ARSEQCA, PSC has made the so-called
'offending material' from De Facto available on this web-site. The
entire ' offending material' can be downloaded in PDF form
here.
- 30 -
For information: Cynthia Callard
or Neil Collishaw
613 233 4878
Links:
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