Commercial Alert, child advocates and public health organizations sent a letter today to National Association of Attorneys General President Andrew Ketterer, Attorney General of Maine, requesting an investigation of whether Philip Morris Cos. is luring ch

Dear Attorney General Ketterer: We write to request that the National Association of Attorneys General investigate whether Philip Morris Cos. is marketing tobacco products to children directly or indirectly, in violation of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement between certain tobacco companies and state officials, by distributing free Philip Morris textbook covers to millions of schoolchildren. According to news accounts, Primedia's Cover Concepts has sent out 13-15 million of the Philip Morris book covers, and intends to distribute 13 million more.(1) The Philip Morris book jackets are ostensibly a part of an anti-smoking educational campaign. However, Advertising Age notes that one textbook cover's design "looks alarmingly like a colorful pack of cigarettes."(2) More importantly, the textbook covers promote to children the Philip Morris brand name, which is synonymous with tobacco and smoking. Branded book jackets are an effective way to increase brand recognition among schoolchildren. According to Advertising Age, one market research study found that schoolchildren had an extremely high brand recall of up to 74% for brands promoted on book covers distributed by Cover Concepts.(3) When Philip Morris promotes its name among children, it increases its brand recognition, and builds a relationship with them that can help sell tobacco products. This is especially troubling given that Marlboro, a Philip Morris brand, is the #1 brand of cigarettes among children. At a minimum, by promoting its brand name among schoolchildren, Philip Morris appears to be indirectly promoting tobacco products to them, which violates the Master Settlement Agreement's broad prohibition against marketing tobacco to children: No Participating Manufacturer may take any action, directly or indirectly, to target Youth within any Settling State in the advertising, promotion or marketing of Tobacco Products, or take any action the primary purpose of which is to initiate, maintain or increase the incidence of Youth smoking within any Settling State. Some educators are rightly worried about whether these Philip Morris book covers will encourage children to use tobacco products. For example, on November 27, Delaine Eastin, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, encouraged California county and district superintendents to "thwart this attempt by the Philip Morris Tobacco Company to reach kids with their message."(4) We strongly urge you to determine whether the distribution Philip Morris textbook covers to schoolchildren is a direct or indirect promotion of tobacco products in violation of the Master Settlement Agreement. If so, we urge you to take appropriate action to recall the Philip Morris textbook covers, halt any additional dissemination of these covers, and to take whatever other measures are needed to safeguard the health of schoolchildren from marketing depredations of Philip Morris. Sincerely, Enola G. Aird, Director, Motherhood Project, Institute for American Values John R. Garrison, CEO, American Lung Association George Gerbner, President and Founder, Cultural Environment Movement; Dean Emeritus, Annenberg School of Communication Bill Godshall, Executive Director, SmokeFree Pennsylvania Peter Hanauer, Past President, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights Michael F. Jacobson, co-author, Marketing Madness Sut Jhally, Founder and Executive Director, The Media Education Foundation Jean Kilbourne, author, Deadly Persuasion Diane Levin, Professor of Education, Wheelock College; author, Remote Control Childhood David O. Lewis, M.D., Executive Director, Health Advocacy Group of Southside VA Susan Linn, EdD, Associate Director, Media Center of the Judge Baker Children's Center Bob McCannon, Executive Director, New Mexico Media Literacy Project Robert McChesney, Research Associate Professor, U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; author, Rich Media, Poor Democracy Jim Metrock, President, Obligation, Inc. Edmund Mierzwinski, Consumer Program Director, U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) Mark Crispin Miller, Professor of Media Ecology, New York University Alex Molnar, Director, Center for the Analysis of Commercialism in Education, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Diane Morrison, Ph.D., Research Professor, School of Social Work, University of Washington Kathryn Mulvey, Executive Director, INFACT Jeannette Noltenius, Executive Director, Latino Council on Alcohol and Tobacco Gary Ruskin, Director, Commercial Alert Juliet Schor, Senior Lecturer on Women's Studies, Harvard University; author, The Overspent American Buddy Smith, American Family Association, Asst. to AFA Pres. Donald E. Wildmon Inger Stole, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Advertising, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign David Walsh, Ph.D. President, National Institute on Media and the Family Robert Weissman, Co-Director, Essential Action M. Cass Wheeler, CEO, American Heart Association

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