11 août 2008
Japan remains a smoker's paradise
Humourist David Sedaris is no longer a smoker, and, oddly, he has Japan to thank for it.
The American author, most recently of When You Are Engulfed in Flames, kicked his 30-year cigarette habit in Tokyo. Quitting smoking is probably a feat for anyone, yet one needs extra willpower to do it in a true puffer's paradise.
Travelling to this land of dirt-cheap cigarettes and omnipresent ashtrays to beat your addiction is like going to Madrid to give up pork, Prague to escape beer cravings or Beijing to get away from crowds. That didn't keep Sedaris from spending three months in Japan last year, and succeeding.
"I read in a book that the best way to quit smoking was to move, and in Tokyo it's against the law to smoke on the street," Sedaris joked recently to Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's The Daily Show. "It's not second-hand-smoke-related, it's you put a hole in my Comme des Garcons jacket-related."
For most of the nation's 127 million people, Japan's views on smoking are anything but a laughing matter. Japan Tobacco Inc., the world's third-largest publicly traded cigarette maker, is 50 per cent government-owned. When you consider the tax revenue from its $31.4 billion in domestic tobacco sales, it's no wonder Japan Tobacco has friends in high places.
Some gutsy lawmakers want to more than triple cigarette prices to about $10 a pack. That would put Asia's biggest economy in closer alignment with the anti-smoking movements in other industrialized nations. It also might increase government revenue amid modest economic growth. Japan Tobacco, which markets about 30 cigarette brands in Japan, isn't happy.
"It would be disastrous harm for consumers first and the industry as well," president Hiroshi Kimura said last month.
This is really a story about Japan -- how the government's tentacles travel around the business world, and vice versa. The finance ministry is Japan Tobacco's largest shareholder, leaving little doubt anti-smoking efforts will lack teeth. The arrangement has Japan implicitly encouraging smoking.
The tobacco debate is a reminder that as much as we talk about the "New Japan" of high technology, anime and hybrid cars, much of the old remains. Politicians are protecting vested interests without considering the bigger picture.
Kimura complains that most smokers would quit if the price of cigarettes were tripled. Some economists say so many people would stop smoking that tax revenue may actually decline.
Yet the end -- a more productive workforce that takes fewer smoking breaks and has lower health-care burdens -- would justify the means. This isn't just a fiscal issue. This isn't about shares in Japan Tobacco falling. It's a public-health issue.
Ideas such as banning tobacco advertising, sponsoring tobacco-control programs and public-service announcements haven't caught on in Japan. All this says much about the government's economic policies.
Japan has the world's largest public debt, and the demographics make pledges to reduce it unrealistic. With the population both aging and shrinking, Japan must find new revenue, while funding the skyrocketing health-care costs.
04 août 2008
The Art of Joe Camel
Joe Camel was the brilliantly successful advertising campaign used to market Camel Cigarettes manufactured by RJ Reynolds. The Campaign began in 1987 and was unfortunately stopped in 1997.
For the first time this cigarette mascot was introduced by a British artist Nicholas Price in 1974 that was used by a French magazine. Maybe, if there weren't cigarettes, this mascot disappeared in near time.
In 1987, at 75th anniversary of Camel tobacco “Old Joe's” and this year was year of appearance of legendary Joe Camel. It was an illustrious event. After a few years Joe Camel developed into most recognizable character. It was a real rival of such veteran characters as Mickey Mouse, Fred Flintstone, Barbie or Bugs Bunny. This confirmation was stated as result of survey done by Journal of the American Medical Association.
Who was looked Joe Camel? It was born as a cartoon mascot. As his name suggests, Joe was a camel that was represent with human-looking appearance that used to smoke cigarettes, and he was cool in style and often with sunglasses. Often meted representation were playing billiards, or a saxophone, or on the beach, in a nightclub, or just hanging out while looking cool.
Creator of Joe Camel once said in an interview, “I was just trying to make this stupid head have some kind of expression I could change from ad to ad, and I remembered how Sean Connery as James Bond could move his eyebrows so expressively. So I ripped off his eyes and eyebrows and Don Johnson's hair... how I personally feel about being known for this piece of crap that people think is great advertising. It's a pretty shitty piece of art.”
With such characteristics mascot of cigarettes was represented in many different sceneries and places, but one thing was common: he was nifty, attractive, stylish and handsome. Examining advertisement illustrated on bills, posters and placards of those times it can be easily observed all this distinctiveness that assured its world eminence.