Nasty ads? Wake up and smell the tobacco

What fun I've had these past several days watching so manyspecial-interest groups and media commentators work themselves into atsk-tsking frenzy over the advertising campaigns of Camel cigarettesand Old Milwaukee beer. R.J. Reynolds is under fire because a studyfound the "Old Joe" cartoon camel character to be easily recognizableand quite popular among youngsters, while the Stroh Brewery Co. istaking heat for its Old Milwaukee commercials starring an equallycartoonish creation - the jiggly giggly Swedish bikini team.

Voices of outrage are ringing loud and long. A cigarettecompany allegedly trying to appeal to young nonsmokers by using acartoon character, of all things! And a brewery gratuitouslydisplaying nubile female forms in an effort to sell beer! Shocking!Where do they come up with such sneaky tactics?

Oh please. We're talking about beer and cigarettes here, nothealth foods or children's books. Of course the advertisements aregoing to be sleazy, insidious, nefarious and offensive. Haven't theyalways been? Isn't that sort of the point?

Looking for honesty or a straightforward approach in a beercommercial is like trying to find an original melody in a Vanilla Icesong. At least the Swedish bikini team ads acknowledge thelong-standing practice of using sex to hawk beer. To be offended bythese ads but not by the equally sexist but more polished"chick-videos" for Bud Light, Coors, Michelob, et al., seems rathersilly. The barely subliminal message of just about every beercommercial I've ever seen is, "Buy our beer and you'll meet fabulousbabes." Let's face it, you're never going to see an ad proclaiming,"Old Milwaukee - not as good as Michelob, but cheaper."

As for Old Joe, I'm having trouble believing the study in theJournal of the American Medical Association that says thephallic-faced "Smooth Character" is as recognizable to 6-year-olds asMickey Mouse, but then again, this is only the latest bizarre chapterin the four-year history of the inexplicably popular cartooncharacter.

Old Joe, a.k.a. Joe Camel, was launched in 1988 and modeledafter James Bond and the Don Johnson character in "Miami Vice." Atthe time, I thought this was the stupidest and strangest logo-mongerI'd ever seen. A tuxedo-clad cartoon camel interacting with humans?What does this have to do with the act of smoking, other than thefact that both camels and heavy smokers tend to have yellowish teethand bad breath?

And not only was this camel weird, he was evil. Consider one ofthe first Old Joe campaigns, titled "Party with the Wild Pack." Amagazine insert described the Joe Camel method for impressing womenon the beach: "Run into the water, grab someone and drag her back tothe shore as if you've saved her from drowning. The more she kicksand screams, the better."

Lovely. Someone actually concocted a rape fantasy as a way ofselling a cancer-causing product. And how do you sleep at night?

As distasteful as he was, Old Joe soon became an omnipresentcharacter on billboards, in magazines, on hats and shirts and beachtowels. Spuds MacKenzie with a hump, if you will. And Camel saw itsshare of the under-18 market soar from 0.5 percent to 32.8 percent,translating to more than $475 million in sales. Old Joe is a salesstud.

With a straight face, R.J. Reynolds continues to claim the OldJoe campaign isn't targeting young nonsmokers. If you believe that,you probably think the Lucky Charms leprechaun is intended to appealto 40-year-old fans of breakfast cereals. But what would we expectto hear? These people are pushing tobacco, for goodness sake. Morethan 1 million smokers stop every year, either because they quit ordie. If you don't recruit the young and the smokeless, you're goingto see your entire consumer base die - in many cases sooner ratherthan later, because after all, they are smokers, and there's thatbothersome cancer connection.

In the context of the R.J. Reynolds mission in life, which is tosell cigarettes, whoever created Old Joe should be given a medal.And to anyone in the anti-smoking, anti-sexist, anti-vice coalitionwho is truly shocked or outraged by the likes of Old Joe or theSwedish bikini team, I can only ask, where have you been?