News analysis 173

stadium, cheekily embossed with the brand’s name, though executed, like the concept of the promotion, with scant regard for taste. Elsewhere in South Asia, too, the high tide of tobacco advertising has shown no signs of receding. In Sri Lanka, Philip Morris used a new trick in this region, attempting to exploit some of the most familiar, Hollywood friendly icons of grass roots American culture. In a colourful pro- motion, entrants stood to win one of five classic American cars, an original Wurlitzer jukebox, the ubiquitous travel bag, or a “classic American” Zippo lighter. : mobile frenzy

BAT has enlisted TV star Said to promote its as Bond goes in for Gold Street brand in Pakistan. the kill wherever he goes. He is known to mil- For most people in West Africa, the lions through his starring role in one thought of owning any sort of hi-tech of the country’s most popular televi- luxury goods is little more than a pipe- sion drama series. What a catch, then, dream. A competition to win one of 50 for British American Tobacco (BAT), mobile telephones, complete with an whose Gold Street he has initial call charge credit, was therefore Marlboro promotional campaign bound to be a hit in Togo, a small been helping to promote. Interestingly, advertisements in Sri Lanka, in which entrants the brand bears a remarkable resem- could win a classic American car. country wedged between Ghana and blance to the colours and design of the Benin above the Gulf of Guinea, where company’s Benson & Hedges brand, a mobile telephone costs more than a using the same gold background to- image, everything on a Gold Street third of the average annual per capita gether with a similar font for the pack is in English—except for the gross domestic product. name. And in keeping with the inter- Urdu health warning. Earlier this year Godfrey Philips, a national companies’ use of western Not to be outdone, Red and White subsidiary of ever crafty Philip Morris, references to present an upmarket brand, made by a Philip Morris sub- came up with a promotion for its Bond sidiary, has run ads featuring a verita- Street brand, which exploited ble Alladin’s cave of desirable con- a popular misunderstanding. The sumer goods to tempt the would-be name Bond has near legendary status upwardly mobile—a sleek BMW among children, even those who do sports car, ultra slim laptop computers not attend school, thanks to the popu- and mobile telephones, as well as the larity of the James Bond adventure ubiquitous cigarette lighters—all to be movies. His special agent’s number 007 won in a promotion in February. Ads is to be found everywhere, especially appeared in journals such as The Crick- on children’s toys. Apparently, many eter, which covers the country’s most children mistakenly believe that any- popular sport, whose most ardent fans thing called Bond is associated with are teenage boys. No doubt Philip their hero. Morris would say that it was only tar- Just as Bond the agent always gets geting “young adults” who are, of the girl, played by an actress who was course, fully informed about the risks somewhat easy on the eye, so Bond of smoking. They could even point to Street the cigarette ran ads showing the health warnings on the promo- young men looking so happy, they tional ads, situated in the bottom left- must have just won either a phone, or hand corner of the ad shown here. the affections of the glamorous young Even in the original, it is so small as to woman beside them, or possibly both. be almost illegible. As with 007’s women, the models in Later in the year, to capitalise on the ads looked European, not African, World Cup soccer fever, Diplomat just as many other African tobacco ads brand, also from Philip Morris, linked feature Americans or Europeans. itself to the familiar range of toys for Entr