The 1998 Hearings
By 1998, the Legislature had become sufficiently concerned about the conduct of the media campaign that it held several oversight hearings to investigate the matter. Senator Mike Thompson (D-Santa Rosa) held three hearings of the Budget and Fiscal Review Committee. After two unsatisfactory appearances by DHS officials, Thompson demanded that the advertising agency appear before the committee. In preparation for the hearing, Stratton called Hal Asher of Asher & Partners to coach him about what they were to say at the hearing. According to a memo Asher wrote to his coworkers, “They [Stratton, on behalf of the administration] want us to say…with all clients we present a lot of ideas…some stay…some go. They want us to say…the state is not stalling. (He initiated this—not his exact words.) They rejected some ideas. Had input…and then accepted many of the new commercials. In other words…they help in the process…and this is like any client!…That the state added value to the campaign” (emphasis in original).[66] Stratton emphasized the need not to air dirty laundry in public and for everyone “to be on the same page.” According to Asher, Stratton wanted them to say, “We are extremely excited about the new commercials that we are in the process of producing…and we think they will be the most effective yet.”[66] By May, DHS had, in fact, killed virtually every idea that Asher & Partners had presented for countering tobacco industry influence.
Responding to the administration's stated concern that they would have to release materials to the tobacco industry if they showed them to TEROC, the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee approved, in a bipartisan 5-0 vote, language to protect DHS in this regard. The language was designed “to ensure that the materials shared with the statutorily created group [TEROC] not constitute putting this into the public domain.” The governor vetoed the language in the budget, although the new language corrected the nominal security problem that the administration was citing to lock TEROC out of the process.[67] Senator Watson's September 16 hearing of the Senate Health Committee featured extensive questioning of Stratton, who finally admitted publicly that Smoley forbade the use of certain words in the anti-tobacco advertisements, such as “lies” and “profits.”
The full truth about the administration's efforts to weaken the media campaign finally came out at an October 16, 1998, Senate Judiciary Committee
Campaigns which exposed the tobacco industry's marketing tactics have been approved. Campaigns which take on the tobacco industry in a more universal manner have generally been disapproved for being “anti-business” and because they did not focus narrowly on the tobacco industry's “marketing tactics.” All commercials which “personified” the tobacco industry were disapproved for “showing executives in a negative light.” …
In our best professional judgment, California…is not getting the most effective advertising campaign we can produce in the area of “counter advertising” for all of the reasons previously discussed.
Bottom line: effectiveness could be improved if:
- Creative decisions were based on which messages would be most impactful against consumers as opposed to politics.
- All creative decisions were left to the Tobacco Control Section. They get the job done quicker than the multiple approval levels which exist in the administration. They also tend to focus more on a given message's effectiveness rather than its political implications.[68] [emphasis in original]
Asher & Partners also confirmed that, in 1997, “after intense pressure from tobacco control activists, the Administration finally allowed us to use the phrase `the tobacco industry' and asked us to quickly redo all of our creative materials to reflect the reneging of this restriction.”[68]