[GN] article about R.J. Reynolds
D G
5/2/01
Smoking Gun
Tobacco industry documents expose an R.J. Reynolds
marketing plan targeting S.F. gays and homeless
people. Its name: Project SCUM.
By Joel P. Engardio
In its efforts to increase cigarette sales in the
mid-1990s, tobacco company R.J. Reynolds hit on a
novel bit of niche marketing in San Francisco,
according to recently uncovered documents. It created
a campaign that focused mainly on two groups of
smokers: gays in the Castro and homeless in the
Tenderloin. The company called its new project
"subculture urban marketing" and gave it a memorable
acronym: "Project SCUM."
"This is a hate crime, plain and simple," says
Kathleen DeBold, who directs the Washington,
D.C.-based Mautner Project for Lesbians With Cancer.
"What else do you call it when a group thinks of gays
and lesbians as "scum,' and then targets us with
something that kills?"
San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly, who represents
the Tenderloin District, is equally upset. "It's
racist, it's classist, it's oppressive. And it is
really disheartening to hear. But I can't say that I
am surprised. Low-income communities and people of
color have always been derided and taken advantage of.
Obviously, the tobacco companies feel like they can
make money off other people's misery."
The papers that outline R.J. Reynolds' plans are among
the documents made public by the major tobacco
companies as part of a combined 1998 litigation
settlement with attorneys general of several states.
Project SCUM was discovered last week by an American
Lung Association researcher in Colorado, who has been
culling the online archives of millions of
declassified files to better understand how the
powerful and secretive tobacco industry operates. Anne
Landman, who last year found out that Philip Morris
wanted to attract more gay smokers by turning its
famous Marlboro Man into a gay icon ("Outing the
Marlboro Man," Bay View, Feb. 16, 2000), quickly
passed along her latest find to outraged anti-smoking
advocates serving gay and poor communities.
"This is a reminder that, gay or straight, black or
white, we are all victims of the tobacco industry. We
all suffer because of their greed," says Bob Gordon,
vice president of San Francisco's Coalition of
Lavender Americans on Smoking and Health.
Project SCUM details how R.J. Reynolds hoped to
capitalize on groups it termed "consumer subcultures,"
including "alternative lifestyle (gay/Castro)" and
"street people (Tenderloin)." The cigarette maker
wanted to improve the presence of its venerable Camel
brand among gays in San Francisco, amid the relaunch
of its retro Red Kamel spinoff in 1996. Meanwhile,
plans were being made to push the company's discount
brand Doral to Tenderloin residents.
The North Carolina-based company -- maker of other
top-selling brands like Winston and Salem -- would not
comment on the campaign. "We don't respond to those
documents," said R.J. Reynolds spokesperson Lisa
Eddington. "They are part of the master settlement
agreement, and are out there for people to draw their
own conclusions."
Anti-smoking advocates devoted to the gay community
say they are especially concerned about tobacco
companies targeting gays, because of recent studies
that show gay populations smoke at significantly
higher rates than the general population. Researchers
at UC San Francisco found that the proportion of gay
men who smoke is 41 percent, vs. 28 percent of men
overall. Among lesbians, a UCLA study determined that
56 percent are current and former smokers, compared
with 36 percent of women in general. "The tobacco
companies are masters at changing their message to fit
anyone: Want to be tough and butch? Light up a smoke.
Want to be smart and sexy? Light up a smoke," DeBold
says.
"The tobacco industry knows we are some of their best
customers, so if they are going to organize to target
us, we want to organize to fight back," Gordon says.
"Isn't it ironic that they think of us as "scum' --
something filthy and untouchable -- yet they still
reach out to us as a group they consider vitally
important to their profit margin? They just see us as
another set of disposable consumers to addict and
dehumanize."
Yet Landman, who has uncovered many documents related
to gays and other groups, says the entire tobacco
industry cannot be characterized as equally offensive.
She notes a difference in tone, for example, between
documents generated by Philip Morris and R.J.
Reynolds. While both companies actively sought the gay
market, Philip Morris never used disparaging terms
like "scum."
"Philip Morris is very careful with its language and
is very straight-laced in its presentations," Landman
says. "But what we find on the R.J. Reynolds site is
more raw and unpolished. They are more direct in
saying what they mean, and have much less finesse in
hiding their true purpose."
That purpose -- which Landman says is borne out by her
research -- is shared by every tobacco company: to
aggressively and methodically target any possible
group they think they can sell cigarettes to.
After retrieving, reading, and cataloging reams of
tobacco-related documents for more than two years,
Landman says it is rare that anything surprises her
anymore. Except last week, when Project SCUM jumped
out at her.
"The more I dig through these documents, I come to
realize it's all nasty. But this one is particularly
nasty. Even if it is a cute acronym, how do you
justify it?" she says. "What consumers would want to
buy a product from any company that calls them scum?"
Landman notes, however, that in the series of three
Project SCUM documents that date from 1995 to 1997,
the final one has a handwritten marking that crosses
out "scum" and replaces it with "sourdough."
"The name of the project is beyond offensive, and they
realized that a little too late," she says. "It's one
thing to go after a particular group to extract its
money. But it's another to be derogatory while you do
it."
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Ezekiel J. Krahlin
<wyob...@yahoo.com> quoted:
>San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly, who
>represents the Tenderloin District, is equally
>upset. "... Low-income communities and
>people of color have always been derided
>and taken advantage of."
Gee, thanks, Chris, for excluding us gays who were
also a target of Reynolds' marketing ploy. Makes you
wonder how "liberal" you really are!
Such exclusion of gays by otherwise-liberal hetero
politicians--even when gays number among the
targets in question by right-wingers--does not bode
well for pro-gay politics in our present time, and for
some time into the future. We must be especially
aware of such wording by such "progressive"
politicians...who *seem to be defending gays, yet
never mention them in any of our relevant issues.
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