The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Tobacco giant RJ Reynolds is getting some flack over a four-page cartoon pull-out in a recent issue of the famous Rolling Stone magazine. The cartoon supplement features a pull-out centre splash covering Indy music, with a Kirbyesque centrepiece, bookended by pages featuring the Camel logo and large warnings that smoking cigarettes can cause serious side effects such as bad cases of death and smelling very bad. Earth Times and others have heavily criticised this move, claiming that it is a clear breach of regulations banning tobacco companies from using cartoons to promote smoking, especially since such advertising is often linked to trying to target a youthful and impressionable audience.

(section from the Rolling Stone/RJ Reynolds music-ciggies mash-up)

Rolling Stone claims that the section is ‘editorial content’ that just happens to start and end with the Camel logo and health warnings, but the Earth Times is far from convinced: “Rolling Stone may claim that the four-page cartoon spread is not part of the Camel ad that surrounds it, but the cartoon’s content, layout and placement make it appear to be an integral part of the ad. That can’t be an accident. Why would the spread begin and end with a Surgeon General’s warning if it wasn’t a cigarette ad?” They have a link to a PDF of the supplement and while looking at it didn’t make me want to suddenly rush out and have a ciggy (I’ll avoid using the British slang term ‘fag’ to save linguistic confusion to American readers) I think they have a point (albeit the article is biased since it draws on an anti-tobacco organisation’s text), it does look like it is all pretty much part of the same thing and the aim, to my eyes, seems pretty clearly to link the idea of Reynolds’ product with cool music in the mind of the reader (what media studies would refer to as the ‘preferred reading’).

(hey, kids! You like cool music? You like art riffing on Jack Kirby? Buy a pack o’ smokes!)

Associating products like tobacco or alcohol with activities perceived to be cool by a youth audience, such as independent music, isn’t new of course, but looking at this RJ Reynolds (and Rolling Stone) do seem to be sailing close to the wind regarding the strict rules on tobacco advertising. Reynolds should be well-used to cartoon controversy, of course, not only with their Joe Camel character but also with a number of cartoons drawn by Gary Trudeau criticising them over the years on Doonesbury.

Actually, leaving the tobacco element aside for a moment, the whole thing seems to me to be symptomatic of a lot of magazine content these days, where you find several pages of feature, think there is something slightly odd about it and only later on realise it is an extended advert (or ‘advertising feature’ as the mags call them) posing as genuine ads. I’ve seen endless complaints to magazines I read myself about this practise, but the mags usually make some mealy-mouthed half apology, point out they clearly marked it as an ‘advertorial’ (albeit in tiny letters hidden by a layout designed to look like a normal feature) then carry on doing it because they need the advertising revenue (I’m sure many of you are tired of finding the same thing regularly in your mags). A bit like a politician’s speech it may not be outright dishonest, but it can be easily misleading. Strange though that only Reynolds and Rolling Stone are singled out for criticism while the Indy music folks getting the sponsorship and coverage escape censure… Mind you, there are question marks over how effective this kind of sneak advertising-by-association actually is, so perhaps we should be annoyed but not overly worried.