Hi, I’m Dr. Steven J. Allen, Vice President and Chief Investigative Officer at the Capital
Research Center.
What do Sports Illustrated magazine, vampire movies, NASCAR, The X-Files, piña colada
flavoring, and puns based on the expression “Let it go” have in common?
Why, they’re all part of marketing aimed at children, of course.
At least, that’s what some Washington politicians and bureaucrats want you to believe.
Two years ago, Senators held a hearing on how the companies that make and sell electronic
cigarettes aim their advertising at kids.
Senator Barbara Boxer accused the industry of targeting kids by putting flavors in their
e-cigs, apparently basing her theory on the idea that adults want their e-cigs to be flavorless.
One of those flavors targeting kids: piña colada.
Another example of supposed marketing targeting children: an e-cig logo on a woman’s bikini
bottom in an ad in Sports Illustrated.
Senators at the hearing also attacked the e-cig industry for targeting kids by placing
an ad on… the Super Bowl.
Boxer also claimed that the manufacturers were targeting children with an ad that used
the tagline “Let it glow.”
How is that targeting children?
Easy: The term “Let it glow,” you see, is similar to the term “Let it go,” which
ties in with the song of that name that is featured in the movie Frozen, and Frozen is
a cartoon and lots of kids sing that song.
Hey, it’s just logic, right?
In the past, politicians and bureaucrats have accused companies of marketing various products
to children with ads on TV shows like Baywatch and the X-Files, and with sponsorship of bikini
contests and car races.
These sorts of accusations were made against Big Tobacco.
Now, let’s be clear: Big Tobacco sold an addictive product that killed people, and
took taxpayers’ money to do it.
I’m not defending Big Tobacco.
But I don’t defend lying politicians and bureaucrats, either.
The charges against Big Tobacco largely focused on an advertising character named “Smooth
Character,” but that came to be known as Joe Camel.
The idea was that, because Joe Camel appeared in cigarette ads and he was a cartoon, the
ads were aimed at children.
By that logic, the Michelin Man sells tires to children, Erin Esurance sells insurance
to children… and Speedy Alka-Seltzer, the Sinclair Oil Dinosaur, Otto the Orkin Man,
Reddy Kilowatt, and the Budweiser Frogs are all cases of ‘marketing to children.’
The Joe Camel ads featured such “children’s” activities as playing saxophone in a jazz
band and driving around in a convertible picking up chicks.
The ads appeared in such “children’s” publications as, yes, the Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issue and…
Playboy.
Of course, the charge about Joe Camel being aimed at kids was rooted in a scientific study…
one that reportedly showed more kids recognizing Joe Camel than Mickey Mouse.
Funded by whom?
Anti-smoking activists of course.
Conducted by researchers at the Medical College of Georgia and the Department of Family Medicine
at the University of North Carolina, it purported to indicate the number of children who linked
the Joe Camel character to cigarettes.
Of a sample of 229 children, the authors found that the Mickey Mouse symbol had 91.7% recognition
and Joe Camel had 51.1%.
However, the authors decided to focus on the 23 six-year-olds in the study, a tiny sample
size.
Why?
Because 21 of them, 91.3%, recognized Joe Camel.
So what did the take away of the study become?
More six-year-olds recognize Joe Camel than Mickey Mouse, a selective distortion of the
facts.
This study was widely reported by the news media and was used to justify government policy
on tobacco – policy that restricted advertising, but ended up giving Big Tobacco a shared monopoly,
protecting it from competition, in return for lots of cash to the government and anti-tobacco
groups.
Today, politicians and bureaucrats and their media allies are attempting to do to e-cigs
what they did to tobacco.
In the case of tobacco, their targets largely deserved what happened to them, but as we’ve
learned before, violators of the constitution never stop at violating the rights of the
bad guys.
Eventually, using the same techniques of deception, they come for the rest of us.