Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tim McCormick who wrote (34118)	6/30/1998 10:25:00 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 50808

Couldn't resist this post, even though I know I'll regret it... Tobacco and VCD together, in one article. Pretty rare huh? ------------ Tobacco companies' last-gasp giveaway spree Gren Manuel and Alex Lo 06/28/98 South China Morning Post Page 7 (Copyright 1998) CIGARETTE firms are making a last- gasp attempt to offer free gifts that will be banned this week. Pop singer Leon Lai Ming has been drafted into the campaigns ahead of the ban on offering gifts with cigarettes that takes effect on Wednesday. Also banned from July 1 is the common promotional tactic of hiring attractive young women to hand out free cigarettes on the roadside. Legislator-elect Christine Loh Kung-wai, one of the promoters of the legislation about to come into force, said cigarette firms were seizing their last opportunity. She said free gifts were a useful tool for tobacco traders. Last week three-hour queues formed in the rain outside Jusco stores as customers tried to exchange empty packets for wallets, cigarette lighters and other gifts. Lai is featuring in a tie-in campaign promoting a film as a Salem Movie Showcase in posters dominated by the brand's logo prominently displayed on the MTR. Three empty packets of Salem menthol can be swapped for a new VCD containing footage from his new movie. Two packets will get you a movie poster at Daily Stop Shop outlets. The Lai campaign has drawn strong criticism from Council on Smoking and Health chairman Professor Anthony Hedley, who said it was a premeditated attempt by Salem to recruit underage youths, particularly teenage girls who were Lai's main fans. "Mature adults would have little interest in a movie by Leon Lai," he said. The Tobacco Institute Code of Practice states "tobacco advertising is not to be directed towards those under 18 years of age". But institute executive director Albert Chan Yu-chung said it was not breaking the code because the advertisements were linked to a Category IIB movie - although there is no legal bar on children entering such movies. "This is just one notch below Category III," he said, adding that those trying to swap empty Salem packets for Leon Lai products under the offer had to be over 18. He said he was "not capable" of saying whether Lai's fans were mostly under 18. RJR-Nabisco, which makes Salem, was not available for comment. A Daily Stop Shop assistant in Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station said: "Mostly younger people come for the exchange." She said staff had been instructed not to give out the merchandise to people under 18, adding that she had refused one customer who appeared too young and could not produce an identity card. The MTR recently banned a Body Shop campaign featuring a plump, naked doll aimed at improving women's self-image, but yesterday a spokesman said it had no problem with the Leon Lai cigarette advertisements. "The poster is advertising a legal product and it is difficult for us to say which legal product can be advertised in MTR poster spaces and which cannot," she said. One in 10 MTR poster spaces was sold for cigarette advertisements, she said.