April 14, 2010

Camel uses questionable methods to promote products

Staff Editorial

Free things are really nice when you’re a college student.

Freshmen and older students who don’t know any better gather in front of Memorial Stadium for Big Red Welcome, accruing pillowcases full of things they aren’t going to use the rest of the year, eagerly signing up for clubs and activities that will eventually turn into an inevitable groan when weekly mailings start to pile up in respective e-mail accounts.

Recently, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco has been hopping on the Big Red bandwagon.

Many of the 21-and-over crowd might have noticed Camel representatives storming the bars last weekend, handing out free packs of Camel Crushes or Camel Menthol, two new products Camel is trying to promote. Free smokes at the bar seems like a decent idea, but it makes the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board question the already shaky ethics of this big tobacco powerhouse.

Acquiring the two free packs was relatively easy. All you needed was a driver’s license, an e-mail address and a phone number. And just like those ignorant freshmen on the first week of school, intoxicated on their new freedom, these inebriated adults gave out anything and everything to get free stuff.

Ultimately, we feel that these two free packs, a $10 value in reality, came at a much higher cost.

The Camel reps were giving out cigarettes indiscriminately, to smokers and non-smokers alike. It didn’t really matter to them. It was a product, and the reps were getting the product into the hands of consumer.

But smoking, just like any other vice, is an activity based on addiction. This is comparable to companies who produce and distribute alcohol that walk down the street with a 30-pack, handing out beer on O Street to anyone with a mouth.

Smoking is not a required activity when you go out to the bars, though many people enjoy it. The issue is not with the institution of smoking. It is the principle of giving 40 cigarettes to intoxicated people who have an e-mail address. A more preferred method of promoting new cigarettes would be to offer these free packs at an authorized tobacco retailer, a place frequented by people who already smoke. Conning people into an addiction simply isn’t fair.

Free stuff always has a price, even if it’s just annoying junk mail.

See the entire article at: The Daily Nebraskan