President Clinton is expected to unveil the FDA's regulation
on tobacco advertising on Friday, according to ADVERTISING AGE.
Sources said Wednesday they expect the rules to be "little
changed" from the original proposal of a year ago, which is
already being challenged by two suits in federal court. Tobacco
companies will "most likely" seek a temporary restraining order
on Friday, preventing the rules from going into effect, but the
President will still be allowed to make the rules the focus of
his acceptance speech next week at the Democratic National
Convention. Assoc. of National Advertisers Exec VP Dan Jaffe:
"This has a lot more to do with presidential politics than with
advertising." Among the rules in the FDA's original proposal:
Sports sponsorships would be limited to corporate names, race
cars could not be in tobacco company colors, and identification
of tobacco brand sponsorship on cars would have to be in black
and white (AD AGE, 8/22). One Clinton Administration official
said the rules would contain "some changes" from the proposal
issued last year, but the overall thrust would remain the same
(Timothy Noah, WALL STREET JOURNAL, 8/22).
REAX: According to Tobacco Institute spokesperson Brennan
Dawson: "Their proposals are ineffective and illegal.
Ineffective in that what the FDA proposed to reduce smoking won't
work. Illegal in that this is an agency that does not have
jurisdiction over the product" (Schwartz & Harris, WASHINGTON
POST, 8/22). NBC's Pete Williams, on the government's difficulty
in regulating ads: "Restrictions on beer advertising have already
been tried and the Supreme Court has already shot them down, so
it's going to be a tough go to try to get restrictions on
advertising. The government will have to try to say there's a
higher public good and that's protecting young people" ("NBC
Nightly News," NBC, 8/21).
