Court To Decide Lorillard Challenge To Antismoking Ads
Inhaling the Truth
05/04/2006
Joseph C. Roth
Joseph C. Roth
It’s 2006; we all know that tobacco is bad for you. We all know that cigarettes cause cancer. So why do I have to see Truth commercials every time I turn on the TV?
With the Internet and easy access to information today, it’s easy to assume most people know the high risks of tobacco use, yet we are still bombarded by anti-smoking campaign commercials. I see the point of these advertisements. They believe that they are helping people by telling them not to smoke; they believe that they are working on a cause that is worth their efforts. But what I don’t understand, is why not put this time, money and effort into something more useful and important-like contributing to homeless shelters, poverty-stricken families or any number of charity organizations?
I could understand if we were in the 1950s, when public statistics about tobacco didn’t say that it was bad and carcinogenic, but it’s 2006. We all know it is bad and causes cancer. Most of my friends who smoke say, “I’m going out to get some cancer,” every time they go out to take a puff. This demonstrates that people know that tobacco causes cancer and has many other negative effects, yet they smoke anyway. Why do non-smokers care so much if smokers want to kill themselves with tobacco? If you choose not to smoke, that is your decision, but don’t push your beliefs on others. People are killed in automobile accidents all the time, yet people choose to drive cars every day. Why do we not see public service announcements protesting the driving of cars if people are so worried about human life?
According to the National Safety Council, in 2003, about 20 million drivers were involved in a motor vehicle accident. Over 44,000 died as a direct result of the accident. Yet I have never seen any commercials on television calling for a boycott against Toyota or Ford. Nor have I ever seen one where hundreds of body bags are being carried through Detroit to the front doors of GM’s headquarters. We have not seen these commercials because those commercials would bring us to outrage. We do not want to be told what to do or how to live, so why do the Truth commercials, that try to tell us how to live, not bring us the same anger?
If you choose not to smoke cigarettes, you will probably live longer than those who do, though those years will probably be the years spent in nursing homes and wheelchairs anyway. Nonetheless, that does not give you the right to tell everyone else what they should or should not do with their own bodies.
There is nothing wrong with giving information with the intent to better the public, but if the public already knows the information and you attempt to force them to agree with your views through a campaign of repetitive commercials meant to brainwash them, that is wrong. Why not have advertisements against bungie jumping, skydiving and other dangerous activities, which people choose to participate in every day?
Again, it’s not 1950 anymore, when commercials for cigarettes included things like comparing smoking to being patriotic or stylish. We have all seen the warnings on packs of cigarettes and we all have had health class, reminding us that smoking is bad. So why do people who don’t smoke feel that it is their holy crusade to inform others about how bad smoking is for you, as if their stating the obvious is going to somehow change lives forever?
The danger of smoking cigarettes is enforced from elementary to high school. I learned about it multiple times in both private and public schools. If I, or any other American, choose to smoke, it is a personal, conscious decision. As far as warnings go, more has been taught to me about the dangers of tobacco than anything else, so again why do we see commercials against tobacco and not against any of the other legal activities we frequently partake?
People need to stop spending time, money and power fighting stupid topics such as anti-smoking. We all have ideas and opinions that we wish to spread, but we should limit them to important issues. It is one thing to tell us the truth about tobacco, but it is another to shove it in our face by attempting to persuade us with an ad every 15 minutes. These ads are no different than the old cigarette ads, which have been banned by the government.
We banned Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man for a reason. So, why allow Truth campaigns to make repeated attempts to convince us what to think?
Anti-smoking ads may be snuffed out
By Jesse Noyes
Friday, April 28, 2006
Friday, April 28, 2006
For years the advertising world has heaped accolades onto Boston-based agency Arnold Worldwide for its work on the edgy anti-smoking “truth” campaign.
But the “truth” could end up buried if a major tobacco company wins a hotly contested suit in a Delaware court.
The Lorillard Tobacco Co., which makes Kent and Newport cigarettes, asked an appeals court earlier this week to rule against the American Legacy Foundation, which funds the “truth” campaign. Lorillard argued some “truth” ads vilify the tobacco industry.
But the “truth” could end up buried if a major tobacco company wins a hotly contested suit in a Delaware court.
The Lorillard Tobacco Co., which makes Kent and Newport cigarettes, asked an appeals court earlier this week to rule against the American Legacy Foundation, which funds the “truth” campaign. Lorillard argued some “truth” ads vilify the tobacco industry.
The foundation warns that Lorillard, which lost a previous ruling in a lower court, is pursuing a course of appeal that could shut down the “truth” campaign and shutter the foundation’s doors.
“If Lorillard gets it’s way we may not be running these ads and American Legacy itself may not even exist,” said Joseph Martyak, the foundation’s executive vice president.
“If Lorillard gets it’s way we may not be running these ads and American Legacy itself may not even exist,” said Joseph Martyak, the foundation’s executive vice president.
The “truth” campaign, which is led by Arnold and Miami-based ad agency Crispin Porter and Bogusky, has been praised by the ad world for its edgy tactics and by anti-smoking advocates for its effectiveness among teenagers. The ads have gone for maximum shock value, and depicted teenagers doing stunts such as unloading body bags in front of a tobacco company’s headquarters.
“Our work has a very youthful flavor to it,” said Fran Kelly, chief executive of Arnold US in Boston.
“It can feel a little bit rebellious . . a little bit irreverent.”
But Lorillard claims the campaign is disparaging and violates a multibillion dollar landmark settlement between Big Tobacco and the state attorneys general, which led to the creation of the foundation and the “truth” ads.
The company has said it wants the foundation to change management or transfer money earmarked for anti-smoking education to a different organization.
Lorillard declined to comment yesterday.
Even if the foundation succeeds in court, budgeting for the campaign has shrunk by more than half since 2000, Martyak said.
“We believe there is still sufficient funding,” Kelly said. “We just can’t waste a penny if we’re going to win this fight.”
Company Tells Court Antismoking Ads Go Too Far
April 27, 2006
By RITA K. FARRELL
DOVER, Del.
By RITA K. FARRELL
DOVER, Del.
THE Lorillard Tobacco Company argued in court yesterday that an antismoking group had violated an agreement by using its ad campaigns to attack the tobacco industry and its employees while trying to persuade teenagers not to smoke.
In an hourlong hearing, the Delaware Supreme Court heard an appeal of a lower court decision last year that rejected Lorillard’s claim and upheld the position of the group, the American Legacy Foundation, that the ads were not only truthful but effective.
In a five-year study, the group said it found that the percentage of teenagers 18 and younger who smoked dropped to 16 percent, from 20 percent.
Justice Randy J. Holland said the full bench panel of five judges would rule later.
At issue is Lorillard’s contention that “vilification” and “personal attack” against the industry were expressly prohibited when four tobacco companies and 46 state attorneys general signed a $206 billion settlement in 1998.
But neither side defined the terms in the contract. In August, Vice Chancellor Stephen P. Lamb of Delaware Chancery Court did so for them, in the foundation’s favor.
He said disparagement was not vilification and that television ads describing employees explicitly or implicitly as “liars, greedy executives or authors of embarrassing documents” did not rise to vilification because there was neither “cruel slander” or “vitriolic attacks.”
The judge also said “personal attack” required specific identification of “a particular person or company,” but that did not apply to mentioning the tobacco industry.
In yesterday’s hearing, a lawyer for Lorillard, Jim Phillips, said Judge Lamb’s “unprecedented and unworkable method” of defining terms introduced uncertainty into contract law in Delaware, a state whose judicial system is valued by corporations because of the certainty of its business law. More than half of the Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in Delaware.
But Justice Carolyn Berger said that Lorillard itself “created some holes” in drafting the agreement by failing to define the terms. She compared the company’s request for relief from the “parade of horribles” of unpredictable contract law to the story of a man who murders his parents and then asks the court for mercy because he is an orphan.
Mr. Phillips asked the Supreme Court to declare that certain advertisements and the money used to produce them violated the settlement and to send the case back to Judge Lamb. The foundation was formed after the settlement agreement. It has received $1.5 billion in financing since it started its campaign against youth smoking in 2000.
A lawyer for the foundation, David Ogden, defended the graphic and sometimes wry approach of the ads as the only way to reach the target audience of teenagers.
“Kids go against authority,” he said. “You’ve got to speak to them in their own voice. ”
In a clip of an ad called “Body Bags,” young people were seen in front of an office building, unloading 1,200 body bags to illustrate the number of deaths each day attributed to smoking. The building shown was the New York headquarters of the Philip Morris tobacco company, but it was not identified in the ad.
But Justice Henry duPont Ridgely noted that the building was recognizable to New York residents. He said that Lorillard did not disagree “with reducing youth smoking” but “with going after tobacco executives,” who were seen in the ad as blurred images glancing out the windows.
“Just because methodology works, doesn’t ipso facto mean it’s O.K.,” said the judge, challenging the foundation’s defense.
After the hearing, a senior vice president for Lorillard, Ronald Milstein, said the company wanted to replace the American Legacy Foundation unless it changed its management and culture. He said its assets should be transferred to another foundation that would honor the disputed condition of the settlement agreement .
The Honorable William Sorrell, Attorney General of Vermont,
Chair, American Legacy Foundation Board of Directors
Chair, American Legacy Foundation Board of Directors
WASHINGTON, March 6 /PRNewswire/ — The following is a statement by Dr.
Cheryl Healton, President and CEO, American Legacy Foundation(R):
Cheryl Healton, President and CEO, American Legacy Foundation(R):
On Friday, March 3, three tobacco companies — R.J. Reynolds, Philip
Morris USA and Brown and Williamson — filed a motion for leave to appear as
Amici Curiae, literally “friends of the court,” on behalf of the Lorillard
Tobacco Company in the Delaware Supreme Court in its long-running litigation
with the American Legacy Foundation. With this action, it is now clear that
Big Tobacco is resolute in its intent to shut down the Foundation’s truth(R)
campaign, the only national independent youth smoking prevention campaign not
directed by the tobacco industry.
Tobacco-related disease remains the number one cause of preventable death
in the nation and 45 million adult Americans continue to smoke. If
successful, the tobacco industry’s efforts will result in hundreds of
thousands of young people being consigned to a future of addiction, disease
and premature death from tobacco.
Equally important is the fact that it will also seriously jeopardize the
Foundation’s other innovative programs and campaigns designed to prevent youth
from smoking and help those who want to quit, succeed. This latest action by
every major tobacco company comes on the heels of the initiation of a
comprehensive dialogue between the Foundation and states with the largest
numbers of smokers, and tobacco control stakeholders, to begin an effort to
work together through public education and services to drive down still
further the number of Americans trapped by nicotine addiction.
The tobacco industry is in business to sell cigarettes. The American
Legacy Foundation is in the business of saving lives. Ironically, if the
major cigarette manufacturers succeed, there will be only one national media
voice “advising” America to quit smoking — that of the tobacco industry.
While this action occurs four years into the foundation’s litigation with
the Lorillard Tobacco Company, it comes as no surprise. The companies took a
similar position last year when they launched an attack against the truth(R)
campaign in connection with the Department of Justice’s racketeering lawsuit
against the tobacco industry. The Lorillard suit demands the return of all the
Foundation’s Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) funding, retroactive to its
signing in 1998, to the escrow agent. Lorillard’s demand includes funds
provided by all of the MSA signatories.
The American Legacy Foundation was established in 1999 as a result of the
MSA, reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five US territories and
the tobacco industry. It serves as the national public health foundation
devoted to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can
quit. The MSA provides restrictions for the foundation’s advertising that
prohibit it from “vilification” or “personal attack.”
The truth(R) campaign launched in February 2000, is the largest national
youth smoking prevention campaign and the only national campaign not directed
by the tobacco industry. The campaign allows teens to make informed choices
about tobacco use by giving them the facts about the industry and its
products.
In its dispute with the foundation, Lorillard has maintained that the
truth(R) campaign violates the restrictions of the MSA. The Foundation was
gratified last year when the Delaware Chancery Court twice ruled in our favor.
The Court fully vindicated the Foundation’s position that none of our
advertisements have vilified or personally attacked the tobacco industry or
its employees.
Just this past February, a host of public health and other leaders across
the country filed friend of the court briefs on behalf of the Foundation —
supporting our position in this case, and our important work on behalf of
America’s children. These included 19 major public health organizations, the
Citizens’ Commission to Protect the truth, and 34 states across the country.
We continue to be grateful for their support, as they stand behind us in our
very important work to extend and save the lives and health of millions of
Americans.
Now, it is public record that the tobacco industry will do everything in
its power to shut down truth(R) — a campaign that has been proven very
effective, is popular with teens, and most importantly, is saving thousands of
teenagers from a life of potential disease and premature death. The American
Journal of Public Health published findings in February 2005 crediting
truth(R) with contributing to the overall decline in youth smoking by 22
percent in the campaign’s first two years, 2000-2002. This translates to
300,000 fewer youth smokers in 2002 due to truth(R).
Many truth(R) campaign ads are developed directly from actual tobacco
industry documents for the purpose of providing teens with a window into
cigarette advertising aimed at them. In this litigation, Lorillard did not
contest the veracity of the foundation ads, but argued that any advertising
that was remotely critical of the tobacco industry would be in violation of
the MSA’s vilification clause.
The foundation’s Board of Directors and staff follow a rigorous approval
process to ensure compliance with the MSA. That process has resulted in ground
breaking advertising which resonates with the campaign’s 12-17- year-old
target audience.
The tobacco industry spends $41.5 million a day on domestic advertising
and promotional expenditures of its products. Effective national campaigns
like the truth(R) campaign are essential to give Americans needed information
about the health effects, addictive nature and social costs of tobacco use.
The foundation will vigorously oppose the tobacco companies’ efforts to
insinuate themselves into this ongoing litigation, at this very late stage of
the dispute.
Morris USA and Brown and Williamson — filed a motion for leave to appear as
Amici Curiae, literally “friends of the court,” on behalf of the Lorillard
Tobacco Company in the Delaware Supreme Court in its long-running litigation
with the American Legacy Foundation. With this action, it is now clear that
Big Tobacco is resolute in its intent to shut down the Foundation’s truth(R)
campaign, the only national independent youth smoking prevention campaign not
directed by the tobacco industry.
Tobacco-related disease remains the number one cause of preventable death
in the nation and 45 million adult Americans continue to smoke. If
successful, the tobacco industry’s efforts will result in hundreds of
thousands of young people being consigned to a future of addiction, disease
and premature death from tobacco.
Equally important is the fact that it will also seriously jeopardize the
Foundation’s other innovative programs and campaigns designed to prevent youth
from smoking and help those who want to quit, succeed. This latest action by
every major tobacco company comes on the heels of the initiation of a
comprehensive dialogue between the Foundation and states with the largest
numbers of smokers, and tobacco control stakeholders, to begin an effort to
work together through public education and services to drive down still
further the number of Americans trapped by nicotine addiction.
The tobacco industry is in business to sell cigarettes. The American
Legacy Foundation is in the business of saving lives. Ironically, if the
major cigarette manufacturers succeed, there will be only one national media
voice “advising” America to quit smoking — that of the tobacco industry.
While this action occurs four years into the foundation’s litigation with
the Lorillard Tobacco Company, it comes as no surprise. The companies took a
similar position last year when they launched an attack against the truth(R)
campaign in connection with the Department of Justice’s racketeering lawsuit
against the tobacco industry. The Lorillard suit demands the return of all the
Foundation’s Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) funding, retroactive to its
signing in 1998, to the escrow agent. Lorillard’s demand includes funds
provided by all of the MSA signatories.
The American Legacy Foundation was established in 1999 as a result of the
MSA, reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five US territories and
the tobacco industry. It serves as the national public health foundation
devoted to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can
quit. The MSA provides restrictions for the foundation’s advertising that
prohibit it from “vilification” or “personal attack.”
The truth(R) campaign launched in February 2000, is the largest national
youth smoking prevention campaign and the only national campaign not directed
by the tobacco industry. The campaign allows teens to make informed choices
about tobacco use by giving them the facts about the industry and its
products.
In its dispute with the foundation, Lorillard has maintained that the
truth(R) campaign violates the restrictions of the MSA. The Foundation was
gratified last year when the Delaware Chancery Court twice ruled in our favor.
The Court fully vindicated the Foundation’s position that none of our
advertisements have vilified or personally attacked the tobacco industry or
its employees.
Just this past February, a host of public health and other leaders across
the country filed friend of the court briefs on behalf of the Foundation —
supporting our position in this case, and our important work on behalf of
America’s children. These included 19 major public health organizations, the
Citizens’ Commission to Protect the truth, and 34 states across the country.
We continue to be grateful for their support, as they stand behind us in our
very important work to extend and save the lives and health of millions of
Americans.
Now, it is public record that the tobacco industry will do everything in
its power to shut down truth(R) — a campaign that has been proven very
effective, is popular with teens, and most importantly, is saving thousands of
teenagers from a life of potential disease and premature death. The American
Journal of Public Health published findings in February 2005 crediting
truth(R) with contributing to the overall decline in youth smoking by 22
percent in the campaign’s first two years, 2000-2002. This translates to
300,000 fewer youth smokers in 2002 due to truth(R).
Many truth(R) campaign ads are developed directly from actual tobacco
industry documents for the purpose of providing teens with a window into
cigarette advertising aimed at them. In this litigation, Lorillard did not
contest the veracity of the foundation ads, but argued that any advertising
that was remotely critical of the tobacco industry would be in violation of
the MSA’s vilification clause.
The foundation’s Board of Directors and staff follow a rigorous approval
process to ensure compliance with the MSA. That process has resulted in ground
breaking advertising which resonates with the campaign’s 12-17- year-old
target audience.
The tobacco industry spends $41.5 million a day on domestic advertising
and promotional expenditures of its products. Effective national campaigns
like the truth(R) campaign are essential to give Americans needed information
about the health effects, addictive nature and social costs of tobacco use.
The foundation will vigorously oppose the tobacco companies’ efforts to
insinuate themselves into this ongoing litigation, at this very late stage of
the dispute.
3/3/06
Lorillard, anti-smoking group continue court battle over ads
The Business Journal of the Greater Triad Area
Monday 12-05-2005
Lorillard Tobacco Co. has appealed a judge’s decision that ads run by an anti-smoking group don’t violate the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, which provided funds for the group to run the ads.
Greensboro-based Lorillard (NYSE: CG) filed suit in Delaware against the American Legacy Foundation, which created a series of edgy anti-smoking ads as part of its “truth” campaign. One of the radio ads, for example, has a man calling Lorillard and asking if the company wants to buy dog urine to increase its supply of urea, a substance that’s found naturally in tobacco.
In August, Vice Chancellor Stephen Lamb, of Delaware’s Court of Chancery, ruled the ads didn’t violate the Master Settlement Agreement between the nation’s big tobacco companies and 46 states. The agreement stipulates that ads run by the American Legacy Foundation, created with settlement funds, can’t be a “personal attack on, or vilification of” any person or company.
After the ruling, a top Lorillard executive said the company would appeal the decision. After the appeal was filed, just before Thanksgiving, the American Legacy Foundation said that the continuance of legal proceedings would force it to devote more money to arguing the case in court, instead of on its anti-smoking efforts.
The American Legacy Foundation itself filed a “cross appeal” Friday, disputing an earlier court ruling that it could be sued by tobacco companies under the terms of the Master Settlement Agreement.
Lorillard is the nation’s third largest cigarette maker.
Court To Decide Lorillard Challenge To Antismoking Ads
May 10, 2005
WILMINGTON, Del. (Dow Jones)–A Delaware judge said Tuesday he will decide by mid-August whether to strip hundreds of millions in funding from a nonprofit set up to educate children and teenagers about the dangers of smoking.
Vice Chancellor Stephen Lamb of Delaware’s Court of Chancery is expected to rule on Lorillard Tobacco Co.’s argument that American Legacy Foundation breached terms of the tobacco industry settlement that funded it by running ads that “vilify” and “personally attack” tobacco companies and their executives.
Loews Corp.’s (LTR) Lorillard says the antismoking organization went too far in its “truth” ad campaign, allegedly violating restrictions that tobacco companies bargained for in the 1998 tobacco industry settlement that funded American Legacy.
The nonprofit, which received more than $1.1 billion in the first five years of the pact and will receive a total of $250 million in a second stream of payments that extends to 2008, says Lorillard wants to rein in any criticism of tobacco industry business practices, and shut down a highly effective ad campaign.
American Legacy attorney David W. Ogden said Tuesday that the interpretation of the ban on vilification and personal attacks that Lorillard wants the judge to use would prevent “all criticism on whatever subject, however mild.”
Ads that satirize deceptive marketing by tobacco companies and promote youth activism are designed to appeal to the defiant streak in the teens most at risk of taking up smoking, Ogden said.
One that features bullhorn-wielding young people piling up body bags outside an unnamed tobacco company’s headquarters, he said, exemplifies American Legacy’s message: “The tone is serious. It’s not abusive or hostile.”
Lorillard says it is asking for enforcement of limits on how tobacco settlement money can be spent that were agreed to as part of the pact that set up American Legacy. Satire, humor and even good results do not excuse portrayals of tobacco company executives as greedy merchants of death, Jim Phillips Jr., attorney for the tobacco company said at Tuesday’s hearing.
Senior vice president and general counsel Ronald S. Milstein said Lorillard does not want to halt the effort to educate young people about smoking. But it does want Lamb to hand the education effort and the money to someone else, he said.
“ALF has just shown they can’t be trusted with the money,” Milstein said, adding, “We don’t want this money back. We won’t take this money back. We are committed to supporting the program.”
American Legacy still has “significant amounts” of funding in reserve, said Ellen Vargyas, general counsel of the foundation.
But the Delaware litigation could mean an abrupt end to American Legacy’s ” truth” antismoking campaign, one that a study in the March issue of the American Journal of Public Health credited with accelerating a drop in youth smoking, the foundation warned in court papers.
According to the study, the success of the antismoking ads translated into 300,000 fewer young smokers between 2000 and 2002 than there would have been without American Legacy’s efforts.
Earlier this year, a group of former U.S. secretaries of health, education and welfare and other federal health officials asked a federal court in Washington, D.C., to consider forcing tobacco companies to come up with more money for American Legacy, as part of the outcome of the federal government’s suit against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., Lorillard and the Liggett Group.
– By Peg Brickley, Dow Jones Newswires; 302-521-2266; peg.brickley@ dowjones.com
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