In the dog-eat-dog world of the tobacco industry, it can be tough to get a leg up on the competition, which is why Camel is doing something unmistakably bold: The cigarette manufacturer is now advertising to kids again since it seems like with everything going on in the world, no one will notice.
Wow. Now this is a company that’s willing to push boundaries to get its product out!
After contemplating a number of ways to expand its market share, Camel has decided that with the way things are going socially and politically, no one could possibly have the time or energy to notice that it’s back to marketing to children, or even come down on it too hard if it did. It looks like as long as neo-Nazis continue to get more organized and the president remains willing to defend them, Camel is going to go ahead and sell some cigarettes to children because, frankly, the world as a whole has some bigger fish to fry.
Camel began its daring new campaign by dropping a few ads on Snapchat, and the lack of outcry proved that parents were too glued to the TV over reports of a nuclear North Korea to be concerned that their teens were being directly marketed cancer-causing products in between their friends’ stories. Clearly, Camel was emboldened by that test balloon, because the two-page ad it took out in September’s Ranger Rick depicting a kid holding a cigarette in one hand and a fidget spinner in the other with the copy “If you really want something to calm you down, light up a Camel” was a sign that Camel knows that the global rise of right-wing anti-immigrant sentiment is pulling focus from publishers, parents, and the FCC, who wish fighting back against cigarette ads targeted at kids was their biggest problem to worry about.
Incredible. Whoever’s in charge of this advertising strategy should be up for a promotion, because this is thinking outside the box! It’ll be interesting to see if the world will ever get all of the big stuff sorted out enough to eventually turn its attention toward Camel’s direct targeting of the under 18 crowd. Only time will tell!
