Smoking kills, says big tobacco on hacked plain packaging campaign site
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Retailers and big tobacco have ended their campaign against plain cigarette packaging, conceding ”colourful packaging does indeed promote smoking.” Or so the website for the alliance of associations and cigarette manufacturers backing the campaign says. So has the website been hacked? Crikey was sent an anonymous tip off this morning that said: “The Alliance of Australian Retailers Pty Ltd. have quit their campaign against plain-packaging for cigarettes.” But we couldn’t find anyone — retail associations, tobacco companies or the PR agency responsible for the website — to confirm whether the campaign against the Labor Party’s anti-smoking initiative is continuing. From 2012, cigarettes will be sold in plain, standardised packages carrying only explicit images and warnings against smoking under a Labor plan angrily attacked by manufacturers and sellers. As Crikey’s deadline approached the website for the Alliance of Australian Retailers was still declaring on the front page: “The campaign has ended.”
The alliance includes the Service Station Association, Australian Newsagent Federation and the National Independent Retailers Association. Neither group wanted to speak about the campaign, directing Crikey to Craig Glasby as the “only authorised spokesperson”. He didn’t return calls by deadline. The campaign is also “supported” by tobacco giants British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Imperial Tobacco Australia. A spokesperson for British American Tobacco confirmed the campaign is continuing but was “taking a different shape” without wanting to give more details. Sheryle Moon, executive director of the Australasian Association of Convenience Stores, was leading the campaign as ‘director’ of the alliance, including a disastrous interview with the ABC’s Lateline program earlier this month where she admitted she wished her son would quit “because stopping smoking in the community is a good thing.” Moon has since withdrawn from the campaign and her association has left the alliance. She told Crikey today the priorities of the action were “slightly different” to that of her association. She says plain packaging and a ban on retail display promotions is “another impost on retailers” but says the focus should be on the growing counterfeit tobacco market. On its ‘what we stand for’ page, the seemingly hacked alliance website lists a number of diseases and health complications associated with smoking. It goes on to say:
Its links page includes references to ‘myths and misconceptions’ about smoking from the Cancer Council of Australia, while the contact page says: “Any comments or queries can be directed to mediawatch@your.abc.net.au”. |
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8 Comments
Wasn’t paying much attention but I am sure I heard at least on of their ads on TV this am.
Seems to me there is a serious contradiction in the ads that have run so far. A theme in the ads is that plain packaging won’t make any difference. If it won’t make any difference why are they so strongly against plain packaging?
Rossco - got it in one. The only reason they could be campaigning against plain packaging on behalf of tobacco companies is if they think it *will* reduce sales.
“We believe that reducing smoking is good for our community. But good policies require more than good intentions.”
Hilarious.
If reducing smoking is good, imagine how good eliminating smoking would be. And as for those pesky illegal ‘chop chop’ sellers, how dare they sell leaf that hasn’t been drained and then re constituted with additional and deadly poisons to create addictions.
My heart bleeds for them.
Why don’t retailers arrange fags in alphabetical order? This way they should be able to find plain packaged brands without too much effort and angst. I imagine if a cashier is sharp enough to be able to ring-up a till then they should be able to read a brand name.
@ZUT ALORS - The packets will have the name on the top and bottom won’t they? I can’t see why the sellers are whinging! The tobacco companies have a long history of lying to us! I’m so glad I gave up almost 15 yrs ago - let’s hope I’ve avoided getting cancer? Two members of my extended family have died from lung cancer in the last 2 years! Both had given up smoking, but obviously not for long enough! It was terribly sad for them and their families. I have a brother and sister who have emphysema - a horrible disease - you just die slowly! I feel very sad when I see young people smoking! I feel like pleading with them to stop!
Looks like BUGAUP (Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions) has been reborn in a new guise.
Website Utilising Hackers Against Unhealthy Packaging (WUHAUP) perhaps.
It is clearly hacked. Good to see some BUGA UP-type activities in the current media milieu. The tobacco industry and its acolytes never comment publicly, preferring to work behind closed doors since they lost the PR war in the early 1980s. The deal is presumably, ‘we give you money now and you do nothing to stop us for the term of this parliament’. But they never stop trying to sell tobacco and will not do so until they are prosecuted for selling unsafe goods. After the asbestos cases there is a precedent for actually prosecuting people who sell unsafe goods. Some tobacco sellers are worried about it, as was shown in the 2006 NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Tobacco where Mr Ron Bowden of the Service Station Association asked for a declaration that selling tobacco was legal. He was presumably concerned that if a government ever acted, it might go for a little fish rather than a big one. (The reference for this is at p45 of the transcript for 5/5/06.
http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Prod/parlment/committee.nsf/0/7e10e11e0fea2fe4ca2571680005775a/$FILE/Corrected 5 May 2006.pdf)
Go to their website. The ‘Alliance of Australian Retailers Pty Ltd’ (so called) is nothing but a facade used by the tobacco companies to advertise a point of view in the TV media without being directly identified. I saw these ads and immediately thought they smelt funny, and they are. As their website says, “We are supported by British American Tobacco Australia Limited, Philip Morris Limited and Imperial Tobacco Australia Limited”, in other words, funded.
The website contains gems like, “We believe that reducing smoking is good for our community”,… ugh yeah, cause that’s what all good tobacco companies want. Yeah right.
Hey AAR, if you believe in your message,why not identify yourselves in your advertising?
These guys should be called out for everything they are - a (marketing) spin sham.
ALSO, can anyone find them on an ABN/ACN lookup at http://www.business.gov.au?
Can’t find them by name or the ACN number they publish at the bottom of their webpage. I’ll stand to be corrected.