February 17, 2000
11:18 AM   Subscribe

Here are two of the anti-smoking commercials Philip Morris succeeded in getting taken off the air. (News story via Rebecca's Pocket. I'm still looking for the "Body Bags" spot; if you know how I can get it, let me know.)
posted by jjg (6 comments total)
 
About six months ago, 60 minutes ran a story about how a teen anti-smoking group in Florida made a few commercials that were so effective in making teens think twice, the cigarette companies lobbied the networks and legislature to pull the ads and bar them from nationwide use, and instead put "just say no" anti-smoking ads in that they knew were uneffective. I think these commercials were done by the same group. I haven't seen the body bags commercial, but I've seen the "lie detector" and "Splode" commercials on the anti-smoking group's site (can't remember the URL now).
posted by mathowie at 12:01 PM on February 17, 2000


Roger and Me meets The Insider?


Has anyone seen the Mountain Dew-like anti-smoking commercials for "SPLODE"? Not only would I think that MtnDew would be pissed, but frankly it makes smoking sound cooler to me than anything that Philip Morris has ever put out. Kinda like those "I like sex, but I'm not willing to die for it" commercials they used to have. At the time, I was thinking "hey, if the sex is so good that the climax causes you to explode, I could be into that..." - if you want to dissuade, you don't make death look cool. "I like sex/smoking, but I'm not willing to die of a lingering illness that makes me unable to crap unassisted, turns me into a rotting shell that horrifies even my parents for it" would be a better ad.
posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 12:07 PM on February 17, 2000


well... I guess you have. ;^)
posted by CrazyUncleJoe at 12:08 PM on February 17, 2000


The site for the ad campaign is thetruth.com.
posted by jjg at 12:44 PM on February 17, 2000


Apparently the "Body Bag" spot only ran on the USA Network, while the lie detector one ran on Comedy Central.

Since I haven't seen the former, and could swear I've seen the latter a dozen times, does that say something about my TV viewing patterns? :)
posted by smackfu at 2:04 PM on February 17, 2000


They also briefly flash the URL for the Splode Soda site during the commercial.
posted by jkottke at 2:08 PM on February 17, 2000


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