Shucks - Tobacco Ad Spendin' Down

After a few days on the road, we're back at the Big Tobacco Blog. Hope y'all missed us.

It's a dangerous thing, goin' on the road. I'm off fer just a couple days and all of the sudden we get this terrible news. It seems the good ol' boys of my chosen profession have seen fit to decrease the amount of money we're dishin' out fer marketin' and advertisin'. Shameful boys just shameful.

Accordin' to some Washington fellers from the Federal Trade Commission tobacco marketin' dropped by nearly two billion - that's billion with a "b" - dollars from the year 2004 to 2005. I ain't happy about this son!

Of course before I get two worked up, we gotta keep a couple of important points in mind that we all can take comfort in. First while tobacco spendin' is down, we still spent $13.1 billion dollars - that's billion with a "B" on marketin' in '05. So it's kind a like flickin' a small piece of ash off the end of a smooth rich Liardare Carolina 100. It may make that 100 a bit smaller but its still a whole lot a cigarette to smoke.

Also, it ain't like we gotta worry about competition from anti-smokin' types. At times it may seem like y'all see lots of "don't smoke this, don't smoke that" commercials on TV but really states are only spending pennies on the dollar to counteract that $13.1 billion with a "b". Accordin' to this report the ratio of tobacco marketin' to state counter spendin' in 2006 was estimated 28 to 1. And boy, I like them odds.

Well, I gotta say, after sortin' beyond the headline I feel a might better now. And just to finish off yer week on the right note, take a lookey at this great ad fer Kent Cigarettes that tells us all it's a small world after all.