On-Screen Advertising And The
Snow White Controversy

The on-screen advertisements used by B&W were coordinated by Cinema Concepts, a company based in Nashville, Tennessee, and were distributed to movie theaters throughout the country. For example, as of January 24, 1984, advertisements for the Kool Jazz Festival, a nationwide series of jazz concerts sponsored by Kool cigarettes, were being shown on 1,235 screens at virtually every large theater group in the United States, with a combined yearly attendance of 93.8 million people (table 9.3, p. 387).

B&W's campaign backfired when its ads for Kool ran prior to screenings of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in Newton, Massachusetts, and attracted protests by a grass-roots nonsmokers' rights organization, Massachusetts GASP (Group Against Smoking Pollution), because it was shown before a children's movie. The Brown and Williamson advertising department's reaction to this incident is summarized succinctly in an August 4, 1983, memorandum from N. V. Domantay, B&W's vice president of brand management, to Dr. I. W. Hughes, the company's chairman and CEO.

In line with your request to be kept informed of all complaints re: cinema advertising, attached is a copy of Mr. Sutton's attorney's letter, which summarizes the KOOL incident in Newton, Mass.

Our response is also attached. Please note that Mr. Sutton is not directing his complaint at us but rather at the theater owner.

Nevertheless, if this becomes a firestorm (apparently thanks to GASP's efforts in alerting other newspapers to the story), it could impact the acceptance rate of our ads among other theater owners. Worse yet, it could get Washington into the act.

Screenvision, our theater distributor, has already taken steps to avoid this kind of mistake in the future. The KOOL/BARCLAY film reels now carry a warning sign: "DO NOT EXHIBIT AD TRAILER WITH A G-RATED FEATURE ." In addition, Screenvision is soliciting input from theater owners as to how they could absolutely avoid these mistakes in the future [emphasis added]. {2400.15}

Most likely because of the negative publicity surrounding the Snow White incident, and potential further public relations problems, B&W ultimately discontinued its cinema advertising program. The decision to discontinue the program is set forth in a letter written on February 21, 1984, by Ernest Pepples, B&W's senior vice president and general counsel, to Cinema Concepts {2400.12}. According to a memorandum of March 8, 1984, to Pepples from B. H. Freedman, B&W's marketing counsel, Brown and Williamson had by then extracted itself from its contract with Cinema Concepts by settling for $545,000. Freedman indicated that a Jim Adams needed to know whether the payment should be charged to law or marketing, and recommended it be charged to marketing. In a handwritten note, Pepples agreed {2405.06}. That there was a question as to where the charges belonged may indicate that liability concerns played a role in the company's decision.

Thus, an extensive B&W advertising program using trailer advertisements in movie theaters was derailed by the protest of a small grass-roots organization. This incident illustrates the potential effectiveness of strong grass-roots action against tobacco promotion activities.