The campaign target is kids, and the creator of the Marlboro Man says it plans to convince them that smoking isn't cool.

But critics say Philip Morris is only trying to buff its image and that a surer way to discourage youngsters from smoking would be if it dumped the macho cowboy as the icon for its biggest brand.

The Philip Morris campaign kicks off Monday with ads that get the tobacco maker's name in television ads for the first time since cigarette advertising on broadcast outlets was banned in 1971.

The unusual campaign comes as the industry remains under attack in court and may face renewed efforts in Congress to regulate tobacco as a drug.

Big Tobacco recently agreed to pay $206 billion to settle claims by 46 states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories for reimbursement for the health costs of treating tobacco-related illnesses.

The settlement payment included $1.7 billion to study why children smoke and to finance programs aimed at discouraging them from starting.

But Philip Morris spokeswoman Ellen Merlo said her company wanted to act more quickly to reverse the recent reported rise in youth smoking.

``We feel strongly kids shouldn't smoke and we are taking what we hope is responsible action,'' she said.

She said the company will spend more than $100 million over the next year to help prevent youth smoking. The program includes support for community groups and educational programs as well as programs to make it harder for youngsters to get cigarettes.

But she said more than half the first year's spending will go to its antismoking advertising campaign, an amount comparable to what it spends advertising its best-selling Marlboro brand.

The first ads bearing the slogan ``Think. Don't Smoke'' are aimed at youngsters between 10 and 14 years old and will appear starting Monday on networks like ABC, Fox, WB, TNT and The Cartoon Channel.

Merlo said NBC had refused to take the ads but didn't know the reason. A call to NBC was not immediately returned. CBS said it was reviewing the ads.

Three ads show groups of youngsters getting on the bus, gathered at school and lounging on an outdoor stairway, talking about why they don't smoke.

``I don't need to smoke to prove myself,'' one girl says. ``My coolness is not on trial here.'' A boy in another ad says ``We don't have to smoke to be different. Being ourselves is enough.''

The surgeon general's warning against smoking that appears on printed ads and cigarette packs is superimposed over part of each ad, and the last frame carries the Philip Morris name.

More ads are being developed and the campiagn will continue as long as youth smoking remains an issue, Merlo said.

Philip Morris has taken steps periodically over the years to discourage underage smoking but has advertised those efforts in newspapers, magazines, store displays and other non-broadcast media.

Philip Morris chose TV for the latest campaign because the intended audience ``tends to watch TV more than they read newspapers and magazines,'' Merlo said. ``These are definitely not tobacco ads,'' she said.

But tobacco critics suspected Philip Morris' chief interest in backing the antismoking ads was to improve its image.

``I don't want to say it's impossible they could be acting in good faith because there is always a first time,'' said Richard Daynard, a law school professor at Northeastern University and chairman of the Tobacco Products Liability Project, a public health advocate.

But he said ``there is a very delicate line in educating kids in the dangers of tobacco between encouragment and discouragement and I certainly don't trust Philip Morris to have walked the right side of that line.''

Antismoking activist Bill Godshall of the public health group Smokefree Pennsylvania said the campaign could make smoking more attractive.

``If you want kids to start smoking, the most effective way is to tell kids they shouldn't smoke,'' he said. ``It only makes kids curious.''