Examination of Witnesses (Questions 800
- 818)
THURSDAY 20 JANUARY 2000
MR M MACLENNAN,
MR C MACLEOD,
MR N MUSTOE
AND MR
P BAINSFAIR
Audrey Wise
800 It is airport posters in Malaga, it is not
newspapers. "Airport posters in popular holiday destinations,
eg Malaga airport". That is the Costa del Sol.
(Mr Mustoe) But the same rules apply.
We do not change the copy. We keep the same thing there. The reason
there is a high awareness of cigarette health issues in this country
is because 20 per cent of all the advertising spend across all
the companies is consistently behind that warning. I believe the
industry is responsible for making it so high profile. I believe
that all we are doing there is targeting a poster location as
we would be if we bought a poster in a high street in the UK.
801 Part of this brief says "But CAP rules
don't apply outside the UK".
(Mr Mustoe) They do not, it is true,
but if you look at the copy which runs—
802 A soft target.
(Mr Mustoe) No. If you look at the copy
which runs we make a judgement to make sure we do nothing that
would be deemed to be wrong or breaking the rules. It is not relevant.
A comment was made earlier by Dr Brand about the whole of the
ASA. The ASA works differently for cigarettes than for any other
category of advertisers as I am sure you are aware. Everything
we normally do has to be vetted as part of our agency's working
procedure; we send all our work to be vetted by the CAP committee
when it is just a sketch outline idea before Imperial Tobacco
ever see it.
803 You are trying to make smoking a socially
acceptable business, are you not? That is part of your advertising.
(Mr Mustoe) We are not trying to, it
is to a very large extent.
804 Or confirm it or keep it going.
(Mr Mustoe) It is out there, it is a
mass market product. We simply advertise it to smokers for brand
changing; a point which has been made.
805 The next brief in your submission, dated
6 June 1998, right at the bottom of this particular brief for
Imperial Tobacco, `98 Brand Campaign, "CAP are getting stricter.
They will not allow any illustrative style that is deemed to be
appealing to children".
(Mr Mustoe) Yes, that is true.
806 Inherent in that is that the concept of children
was in people's minds when these things were drawn up.
(Mr Mustoe) No, I think you have misunderstood
the comments.
807 I do not think I have.
(Mr Mustoe) It is that if you decide
to use any form of illustration as opposed to photography, CAP
have made it very difficult to use any of that, which was a tightening
up of the code. That word "illustrative" refers to a
particular type of art. Therefore if, in coming up with an idea,
you decide as a creative person you wish to use that form of art,
you will find that avenue is now closed to you so do not waste
your time. That is what it means. It is not about targeting children
at all. This brand is nowhere near in terms of targeting; it is
a mass market brand, a much older profile.
808 Did you almost say to me, "This brand
is nowhere near—
(Mr Mustoe) Nowhere near the younger
part of the market; it certainly would not be targeted at children.
809 That is what you seemed to be just about
to say to me.
(Mr Mustoe) No, I did not. I was explaining
that the brand is an older brand, older than other adult brands.
810 CAP are getting stricter. Even on your own
logic that means that some of the illustrations you might have
used in the past before CAP stepped in, were the sort of thing
that might have appealed to children. That is the logic implicit
in this.
(Mr Mustoe) This idea that CAP step in
and how we do it is wrong. We have a code which is very strict,
it is our code, we go through CAP to vet anything before it goes
forward. There are many, many shades of grey about whether this
image or that image is right or wrong. We have to keep abreast
of exactly where CAP are because they are the body which we work
with to make sure we do not in any way appeal to younger people
or all the other things we are not meant to do. It is very important
therefore when an account person is briefing a creative person
that they make it very clear whether there have been any changes
or any feel of any changes, otherwise what happens is that I have
people sitting in rooms writing adverts which are a complete waste
of time. Of course we brief them, but to suggest therefore there
is some implication that before we were doing something which
was terrible is erroneous and wrong.
811 Mr MacLennan, towards the end of your submission
there is a contact sheet and it is a brainstorming session and
has a number of headings and sub-headings. Who are these ideas
meant to be aimed at? I shall just pick a few out. A free flight
in space. Is that not aimed at the childish imagination?
(Mr MacLennan) I talked about this earlier
in terms of how these things operate in our business and this
is a brainstorming session. There is a list of a whole series
of things, some of which are completely ridiculous, most of which
could never be done, come up with by people who do not work in
the cigarette business and would not understand that you cannot
do them. They are then crossed off and are never pursued. I should
be happy to discuss anything we pursued, otherwise it is just
a product of a group of people in a room coming up with ideas,
some of whom do not understand the rules and regulations governing
communication on tobacco.
812 Just a product of a fevered imagination.
(Mr MacLennan) I did not say fevered.
I said it was an imaginative bunch of people coming up with ideas
who were not aware of the code. No, I did not say they were fevered.
You seem to imply they are ill in some way.
813 One of the sub-headings is "Hedonism".
Who is that aimed at? That is aimed at young people.
(Mr MacLennan) It would be and that is
why we did not do it.
814 "Giving Something Back—Sponsored
parks in urban areas". Children use parks.
(Mr MacLennan) Which is why we did not
do it.
815 But why should that cross anybody's mind?
(Mr MacLennan) I do not know.
816 Cool pirate radio station. Sponsor one of
those. That is aimed at kids listening to pop music.
(Mr MacLennan) You cannot do any of these
things.
817 No, but why on earth do these things raise
their heads?
(Mr MacLennan) Because people are sitting
round a room discussing what a product can do and most products
would be allowed to target these people, do these things. We deal
with many different companies in many different fields, almost
all of which are not regulated to the extent that tobacco is.
Therefore they would be used to coming up with these ideas for
other brands, other products, other areas. That is why.
818 One last thing which defies belief, "Silk
Cut to sponsor Elastoplast". That is disgraceful. Elastoplasts
are used by kids. How do you come up with this stuff.
(Mr MacLennan) I agree actually that
it was a foolish suggestion which someone somewhere in the agency
came up with sitting around in this room. I have explained to
you why they would, but it does not see the light of day.
Chairman: May I thank you for your cooperation
in this very illuminating session. You have left us with a great
deal to think about and the documents which you have forwarded
to us, the Committee will, through its staff and advisers, analyse
and it may be that at some point before the Committee gets chance
to look at them further we will ask you one or two other points
arising from what is in those documents. We do appreciate your
cooperation with our inquiry today. Thank you very much.
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