Curb on Advertising

American Tobacco Co. handles about one-third of the cigaret and smoking tobacco, about one-fourth of the plug tobacco sold in the U. S. Among its many familiar brands are Sweet Caporal, Pall Mall, Lucky Strike cigarets, Bull Durham and Half and Half smoking tobaccos. Sales last year totaled some $200,000,000. The advertising appropriation on Lucky Strikes alone was estimated at $12,300,000. As the largest fragment of Thomas Fortune Ryan's Tobacco Trust, which the government dissolved in 1911, American Tobacco Co. occupies in its field somewhat the position held by Standard Oil of New Jersey in petroleum, except that the tobacco company controls a much larger percentage of its industry. . .

Last week the Federal Trade Commission announced a victory. A certain tobacco company, which the Commission was careful not to name, had agreed to "cease and desist forever" from allegedly unfair methods of competition. The Commission objected particularly to the testimonials in this company's advertising and to its advertising advocacy of cigarets as an aid to slenderness. "Advertising matter [of this company]," reported the Commission, ". . . contained a testimonial or indorsement purporting to be that of certain actresses in a musical show who were credited with the statement to the effect that through the use of respondents' cigarets, 'That's how we stay slender, when in truth and in fact the said actresses were not cigaret smokers and did not stay slender through the use of the respondents' products." The respondent also "caused various forms of advertising matter to contain such statements as 'Every woman who fears overweight finds keen interest in this new and common sense way to keep a slender, fashionable figure,' 'Women retain slender figure,' and . . . 'Overweight is banished,' when in truth and in fact . . . reduction of flesh . . . will not necessarily result from smoking of respondents' brand of cigarets." The respondent agreed to stop misleading statements and to announce as such all paid-for testimonials.

One of the most repeated of all advertising slogans has been the Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet slogan for American Tobacco Co.'s Lucky Strike cigarets. Begun in the fall of 1928, and continuing for a little less than a year, Reach for a Lucky was thoroughly pounded into the U. S. consciousness. From the standpoint of being read and remembered, the slogan was a sensational success and during the period of its appearance Lucky sales steadily rose.

Highly controversial, however, the Anti-Sweet campaign provoked fevered controversy. Candy men (through Candy Weekly, a trade paper) compared the campaign to "a thief in the night," flayed the substitution of "a poisonous alkaloid" for "a nourishing food." Advertising men (through Advertising & Selling, a trade paper) discussed Good Testimonials v. Bad Testimonials, thought that Bad Testimonials were wrecking public confidence in advertising. Utah's Senator Reed Smoot (long interested in beet sugar & its tariff) said that there had not been such an orgy of buncombe since public opinion rose in its might and smote the drug traffic. He proposed that tobacco should be included in the Food & Drug Act and that food and drug advertising be subjected to the regulations prevailing with regard to labels.

In September 1929, the Anti-Sweet campaign was succeeded by a series built around the line An Ancient Prejudice Has Been Removed. The ancient prejudice was the idea that cigarets were bad for the throat; the removal had been accomplished by Lucky Strike's special process --toasting. Recently and currently, however, Luckies have gone back to a more moderate treatment of the slenderness theme, but now are anti-fat rather than anti-sweet. Current Lucky advertisements, illustrated with pictures of single-chinned people throwing double-chinned shadows, urge readers to "Avoid That Future Shadow" by refraining from overindulgence. Copy says: "We do not represent that smoking Lucky Strike Cigarettes will bring modern figures or cause the reduction of flesh." There are no testimonials in the current campaign.

Corporation presidents do not usually conceive their companies' advertising campaigns, but no usual president is George Washington Hill of American Tobacco. The Reach for a Lucky idea came to him, he says, when he chanced to see a stout woman eating a sweet while next to her was a slender girl smoking a cigaret. During the height of the anti-sweet controversy he maintained that his campaign was really helping candy sales by focussing so many millions of minds on the subject of candy. Energetic, strong minded, Mr. Hill personally supervises many branches of his business, even to passing upon the program of the Lucky Strike radio orchestra. His other hobbies include horses, paintings, oriental rugs. Many of the paintings and rugs were destroyed early this year when Percival Hill, 6, shortcircuited the Christmas tree's wiring, set fire to the Hills' White Plains home, of which only the walls were left standing.

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