10:59 AM ET 03/29/98

Yucky Florida tobacco ads target teens

	 
	    By Jane Sutton
	    MIAMI (Reuters) - A vivid series of anti-smoking ads being
aired in Florida -- aimed at teens and selected by teens  --
compares cigarette smoking to inhaling cattle flatulence and
ingesting pus from a dead bird's eye.
	    Florida health officials can't wait to see what the kids
come up with when they get to write their own.
	    A group of Florida teens will get that chance to make
peer-oriented anti-smoking commercials for radio and television
at the Florida Governor's Teen Tobacco Summit, which was to
begin Sunday in Haines City, Florida.
	    ``They're going to write them, create them and star in
them,''  said Carlea Bauman, press secretary for the event.
	    The infamous cow commercial produced by the Florida Cancer
Society is considered the one to beat.
	    ``I don't like to pigeonhole it and say that kids like
things that are gross,'' Bauman said. ``I think it's just that
it appeals to kid's sense of independence. This is a good way to
be different. It doesn't appeal to everybody.''
	    Until the teen-made ads are ready, Florida was drawing from
a repository of anti-smoking ads produced by health and
government agencies around the country and maintained by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
	    ``We have over 200 TV ads and 100 radio ads in our
collection. We're sort of a clearing house,'' CDC spokeswoman
Kristen McCall said.
	    The ads are all aimed at teens and most use humor to reach
their target audience. The two most often requested ones portray
smoking as an impairment to athletic performance and social
finesse.
	    But quite a few -- like the cow flatulence and dead bird
commercials -- use gross-out humor to portray tobacco and other
cigarette ingredients as just plain vile.
	    In the bird commercial, a boy tell of finding a half eaten
bird with a ``scabbed-over'' eye in a dirty pair of underwear
under his bed.
	    ``I sorta touched it,'' the boy says. ``It was all soft and
clammy and yellow pus started leaking out around the edges of
the scab. It smelled like puke. And as it ran down, the scab
started to rip. And my mouth dropped open, and just then, the
scab burst and pus shot into my mouth.''
	    ``Kind of reminds me of that one time I tried to chew --
tobacco,'' the boy says.
	    The cattle commercial notes that cigarette smoking gives off
methane, as do cows.
	    ``The thinking there is based on audience research with
young people. They respond to the gross kind of strategy and are
kind of enamored by them,'' McCall said.
	    One ad produced in Arizona is dubbed ``Theater Snacks'' and
portrays tobacco products as a social liability. It shows a
young man spitting chewing tobacco into a cup and setting it
down, only to have his date unwittingly pick it up and take a
swig of spittle.
	    ``They (teen audiences) really kind of thought that was
cool,'' McCall said.
	    Adult viewers complained that the ad was revolting. Told
that research showed the spots were effective with teens, the
grown-ups were appeased but begged: ``Please don't show that one
during dinner,'' McCall said.
	    Florida screened the CDC collection in October for a focus
group of 40 children chosen by their school districts. After
luncheon at the governor's mansion, they got to pick their 10
favorites, which Gov. Lawton Chiles distributed to Florida TV
and radio stations to air as public service announcements.
	    Not all of those that made the cut were disgusting ``but
that was definitely the theme,'' Bauman said.
	    Because they are public service ads aired without charge,
the Florida stations have been running them mainly in the
late-late night or early morning when few people see them.
	    But Florida's teen-made ads will start airing in prime time
on April 13, kicking off a $25 million-a-year paid media
campaign to discourage youngsters from smoking, Bauman said.
	    ``If you're watching TV, you will see a commercial on that
night,'' she said.
	 ^REUTERS@