Stealth tobacco site troubles industry

Stealth tobacco site troubles industry

This is an MSNBC article published on April 18, 1997 describing a stealth marketing campaign by the Brown & Williamson tobacco company. The article features a graphic of a camel in sheep's clothing and describes a new online magazine/"fun and games" Website that appeared called "Circuit Breaker" that was designed to appeal to young men in their 20s. The site advertised local bands and musical events. Online visitors were given no clue that the site was run by a tobacco company and that most of the musical events were promotions for a new brand of cigarettes. The site offered a free T-shirt in exchange for personal information, but visitors were given no idea who was collecting the information. A media advocacy group pointed out that filtering software was unable to block youth access to the web since it didn't mention tobacco. Once it was exposed that B&W was operating the site, they took responsibility for it, but the affair raised many ethical questions about stealth advertising and promotion techniques.

Org. Author MSNBC Date 19970418 Type INTERNET WEB SITE; NEWS ARTICLE Bates 2084077306/7309 Collection Philip Morris Pages 4 URL: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tcu16c00

Related documents
Luckies Strike Web with Stealth Tobacco Site Publshed article, 1997

search_term=stealth marketing