Check this out from the ABC of Australia. Apparently tobacco companies are findin' a new home on YouTube. Good fer them.
Pro-smoking 'ads' target youth market on YouTube
by youth affairs reporter Michael Turtle
Posted Fri Sep 28, 2007 6:48am AEST
Over the years, governments have slowly restricted the ways that cigarettes can be marketed - so perhaps it's not surprising that new technologies are being brought into the fray.
Although the tobacco companies deny it, one leading anti-smoking academic accuses them of using websites like YouTube to reach a younger client base.
'Smoking equals fun' reads the title of one video.
Another one is called 'Nice day for a girl to have a smoke'.
A simple search on YouTube brings up dozens of items, apparently glamorising cigarettes.
"Here's a cigarette and a lighter which is all we need to perform the trick and see who's gonna win the bet," one video says.
Professor Simon Chapman from Sydney University's School of Public Health says tobacco companies are turning to the web to attract young people.
He says the videos and the online forums do not generally look like ads, but they do promote the idea of smoking.
"People standing around talking about how wonderful it is to smoke, how anti-smoking laws should be disobeyed," he said.
"A lot of soft porn-style messages, the scantily clad women smoking cigarettes and showing how you should hold a cigarette, that sort of thing."
Figures show that smoking amongst young people is at its lowest level since surveys started, at just under 20 per cent of 17-year-olds.
But Professor Chapman is worried that the good work of anti-smoking campaigns could be undone by ambush marketing online.
"You can see how many of these have been watched because they have web counters on them," he said.
"You can see the number of downloads and you can see the number of kids responding to them and saying yeah, wow, great cool, you know go for it, I love smoking, this sort of thing.
"If I were in the tobacco industry I'd be working overtime to make sure those clips are out there in a large variety of ways, and it looks like they're doing that."
The tobacco industry says it is very hard to stop people uploading videos or talking about topics on the internet.
Nerida White from cigarette company Philip Morris says the online videos have nothing to do with the firm's marketing tactics.
"We don't use the web to advertise or promote our products or smoking at all," she said.
"And we don't think people should be able to advertise or promote tobacco on the internet."
Regardless of who is creating the content, there are calls for it to be regulated.
Quit Victoria spokeswoman Suzie Stillman wants the Federal Government to tighten restrictions, to try to bring the internet into line with other forms of media.
"The Commonwealth could look at ways in which internet content hosts and internet service providers could be required to take down or block access to certain material if it contravenes tobacco advertising legislation," she said.
Govt concerned
Federal Communications Minister Helen Coonan says she is worried by the reports.
She has announced that the Government will look into the issue, to see if the internet is already covered by current legislation, or if it needs to be updated.
"We may have to actually broaden the definition of publication," she said.
"At the moment it's prohibited if it's in a document, if it appears in a film or a radio program or it's put in a public place. There's some argument about whether it's specific to the internet."
But the internet can also be used for positive messages.
Ms Stillman points out that there are also a number of anti-smoking messages on the web.
"We can promote anti-smoking information. We can promote non-smoking images in the same way as I suppose they're being promoted on the other side," she said.
In fact, one ad that shows mouth cancer as a consequence of smoking has already been viewed more than 150,000 times online.
The anti-smoking lobby has described the new online landscape as the battleground for the lungs of our youth.
And if it's a war that's beginning, the Quit campaign is prepared to fight back.
