Rolling Stone takes the Heat for the Camel Ad

In the Nov. 15th issue of Rolling Stone the magazine printed a Camel cigarette sponsored ad promoting a website and campaign devoted to “free range music” that supports independent record labels.

It seemed like a harmless campaign at first, but all bets were off when Anti smoking Activists heard about Camel's involvement in the project.

The cartoon insert is among several other inserts in Rolling Stone’s 40th anniversary issue. These inserts are what the magazine industry refers to as “butterfly gates” in which there are ad pages on the outside but it unfolds to reveal pages of articles inside.

The article inside the “butterfly gates” features, “Indie Rock Universe,” which presents a list of independent bands and a out of this world picture of planets, animals and spaceships by Benjamin Marra.

Although this was a creative way of promoting the campaign/website the magazine found itself under fire by several Anti smoking Activists. According to activists it blurs the line between advertising and editorial content.

“The fact that Rolling Stone produced the content, but displayed it in such a manner that it is indistinguishable from the Camel ad, only makes them an accomplice,” said Matthew L. Myers president of the organization, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, in Washington, in an interview with The New York Times.

According to Myers the insert might violate the 1998 settlement between tobacco companies and state attorneys general because the pictures look like cartoons, which can no longer be used in cigarettes ads.

“The insert is particularly egregious because Camel is most notorious for using cartoon characters to market cigarettes to children with the now-banned Joe Camel,” Myers added.

Even though Camel sponsored the ads they disputed the complaint and take no credit for the editorial content.

“There was a clear delineation between our ads on the outside pages and the inside foldout, which is all editorial content from Rolling Stone,” said David Howard, a spokesman for R.J. Reyonds Tobacco in Winston-Salem, N.C., in an interview with The New York Times.

After Camel’s spokesman made this comment it seemed at first that Camel was not willing to take responsibility for their actions. But after The New York Times interviewed someone at Rolling Stone, It was determined that Camel was telling the truth about the editoral content of the ad.

“Reynolds Tobacco had no idea it would take a cartoon format because the advertisers don’t know in advance about articles, just as the editors don’t see the advertising,” said Ray Chelstowski the Publisher of a unit of Wenner Media at Rolling Stone

Even though, Camel cigarettes had no idea what the cartoon format was going to look like it still suspiciously seemed like it was a cigarette ad.