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Revise this Philip Morris ad to share truth with youth about toying with earth's best selling nicotine delivery device: Marlboro

Above is the current U.S. point-of-sale advertisement being used to market the world's #1 selling nicotine delivery device - Marlboro cigarettes. Click on the image to see how it's being used to market nicotine in more than 100,000 U.S. stores.

As you can see, its impact does not discriminate based upon age, immaturity or gullibility of the young minds bombarded by it. The purpose of this page is to invite you to combine your imagination with your computer's powerful graphics program to revise the ad to share a more accurate message. Together, let's make the Marlboro logo a bit more age discriminatory and honest. Let's teach youth that once in the saddle the bucking may not end until the horse throws and kills them.

Philip Morris knows that more than 80% of new Marlboro smokers are still, today, getting hooked while children or teens. As profits continue to rise, it knows that its responsibility campaign and youth smoking prevention messages have been utter failures. Philip Morris obviously needs our help. Although its September 29, 2004 investor's message seems at odds with its youth prevention campaign, let's give Philip Morris the benefit of all doubt. Let's lend a hand in helping revise Marlboro's marketing logo so it actually discourages youth and young adults from taking that first fateful puff of nicotine, that steals unearned dopamine and unnecessary adrenaline and quickly transforms a once honest teenager into a permanent neurochemical thief.

As you can see, we have placed a question mark to the right of Marlboro's bucking bronco, almost as if to suggest that it had been frightened by something, but what? We invite you to replace the question mark with what you think may have startled the horse. I'm no graphics wiz so feel free to modify the starting image as your imagination dictates.

Send your revised .gif to john@whyquit.com and I'll put it up for all to see. Please provide a name or nickname you'd like displayed and let me know if you want your your e-mail address shared so that you can receive direct feedback from viewers. Please understand that by forwarding your image you are consent to allowing others to use it for not-for-profit youth smoking prevention or adult smoking cessation purposes.

If short on ideas you may find inspiration in a few key factual admissions made by Philip Morris in its brochure entitled "Raising kids who don't smoke." The following are Philip Morris fact quotes contained on page four:

• 26.7% of 12th graders "report having smoked a cigarette in the past 30 days."
• "Symptoms of addiction ... can appear in teens and preteens within ... days after they become "occasional" smokers."
• "More Americans die from cigarette-related illnesses than alcohol, car accidents, suicide, AIDS, homicide and illegal drugs combined."
• "Almost 9 out of 10 lung cancer deaths are caused by smoking cigarettes."
• "Secondhand smoke contains 43 chemicals that are known to cause cancer."
• "Smoking is the most preventable cause of premature death in this country."

Since 2002, Philip Morris' website has boldly proclaimed "We don't want children to smoke." Let's put our creative juices together and see if we can't help Philip Morris reduce the number of new Marlboro smokers by over 80%. Thanks!

• Horribly diseased lungs behind bars. Also, putting nicotine before everything else: business, friends, family, and self. Tobi
• I see the words "The Big C" and coming back up around the bottom of the C and facing the horse and marlboro man would be a rattle snake ready to strike. Sue
• Faded into the center of the silhouette of the horse and rider, but made to appear as though behind the silhouette is an image of a patient dying in a hospital bed (the very powerful picture of Bryan comes to mind). Then, the question mark is replaced with the words "The Truth lays hidden by a silhouette of deception". Richard

Philip Morris pretends to be "responsible" while continuing to intentionally bombard young impressionable minds with its marketing inside almost every neighborhood candy store, grocery store and pharmacy in America. As you may have read in Philip Morris' investor message, it plans on investing even more heavily in point-of-sale marketing at the community level. If you'd like to learn more about point-of-sale marketing and how to diminish its impact upon youth in your community visit StoreAlert.org. Also visit WhyQuit's growing collection of youth prevention pages.

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