Sunday, 18 July 2010

Guerrilla marketing

The Observer reports with predictable outrage that tobacco companies are using “edge-of-the-law” tactics to get round the tobacco advertising ban and promote their products. Not surprisingly, ASH are yet again foaming at the mouth. But I say good luck to them – the blanket ban on tobacco advertising is an egregious violation of free speech, and one of the things Clegg should (but won’t) put at the top of the list for his Great Repeal Bill (which is increasingly looking as though it won’t repeal anything significant at all). If you ban something, you shouldn’t be surprised if those affected do their best to find ingenious ways of circumventing it.

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6 comments:

  1. Unknown18 July 2010 at 15:17

    Although I don't really care about the fact that tobacco advertising is banned, I do wonder what would happen if alcohol advertising was. We would certainly have to find ingenious ways of getting our message across.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Curmudgeon18 July 2010 at 15:25

    Dare I suggest that by saying "I don't really care about the fact that tobacco advertising is banned" you are falling into the "first they came for the Jews" trap?

    My view is that a ban (or severe restrictions) on alcohol advertising would very much play into the hands of established brands and big producers - see this article.

    It would also make it very difficult for CAMRA to function effectively ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown18 July 2010 at 18:33

    Indeed, that is the problem with the tobacco ban, not the ban of that particular group of products per se, but the worry is how much further such things will go.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous18 July 2010 at 19:34

    Just a moment
    A product which I cannot advertise,
    I cannot promote,I cannot use in a
    public lavatory,I cannot use on a raiway open air platform,I cannot use in a back street boozing den,
    Nor in a fume filled hospital car park,nor in a diesel fume choked bus station,not even in a lung melting iron foundry.How can this
    product from the bowels of hell
    manifest itself on civilised society

    Easy,any decent supermarket(with a nice cut for the Government) will sell you as much as you want(Day and Night at Asda).
    I must have misssed the plot
    Another little puzzle,how come some MPs hate smoking yet seem
    quite relaxed to bomb the shit out of women and children in Afghanistan.

    Worse still ,we still have some
    "men"?? on the blogosphere who
    snivvel their approval for the above statutes.

    Anti Leveller

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous18 July 2010 at 19:45

    In the 70s I lived in a country
    where there was no alcohol or tobacco advertising allowed,problem
    was the state had to have a big wall,watch towers and barbed wire
    to stop the inmates fleeing.
    DDR (East Germany)
    Whats that I hear from some
    croaking toadies with STATE tatooed
    on their limp wrists,"It cant happen here"
    Its here ,without the wall as we
    have a multitude of backstabbers to
    ensure servitude and compliance

    Gutter Fighter.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Smoking Hot18 July 2010 at 19:54

    Naming and putting Rizla on the report is sheer stupidity.

    Does Mr 'l'll have a joint' get out his tobacco and dope (illegal) and then think 'Hmmm, l wonder what to put it in? Ooooh look, Rizla papers ... what a good idea'

    ReplyDelete

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