Volunteer Vice Squad

By Janice Castro

The executives in the television commercial are grim. "We need more smokers!" growls the tough-talking boss of a tobacco firm. "Every day 2,000 Americans stop smoking. And another 1,100 also quit. Actually, technically, they die. That means that this business needs 3,000 fresh new volunteers every day. So forget about all of that cancer, heart disease, emphysema, stroke stuff! Gentlemen, we're not in this business for our health!" And with that, the businessmen erupt in gales of sinister laughter.

Shown on TV stations throughout California starting last week, the devastatingly direct commercial was the opening salvo in the state's new $28.6 million advertising war against smoking. The California blitz is designed to counter the slick marketing efforts of tobacco firms with equally sophisticated TV, radio and newspaper ads. The goal: to persuade 5 million of the state's 7 million smokers to kick the habit by the end of the decade. Most ironic of all is that the campaign will be financed by smokers through a new 25 cents-a-pack cigarette tax. Says Thomas Lauria, a spokesman for the Tobacco Institute: "Now smokers are paying for their own harassment."

The California offensive opens another chapter in the growing clamor of public opposition to the marketing of alcohol as well as tobacco. The emotional ground swell against the advertising of vices is fueled by a powerful combination of health consciousness, consumer activism and community pride. In New York City, Chicago and Dallas local residents have been whitewashing inner-city billboards to obliterate the images of such products as cigarettes and Cognac.

Meanwhile, parents and health experts have blasted the sponsorship of sports events by tobacco and brewing companies. Louis Sullivan, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, has attacked cigarette sponsorship of such athletic events as Virginia Slims tennis. In its new contract with CBS, the National Collegiate Athletic Association reduced alcohol advertising during its postseason games from 90 seconds to 60 seconds an hour. Said an N.C.A.A. spokesman: "We had gotten widespread feedback from parents, school administrators and the general public that alcohol was the No. 1 problem."

The outcry has prompted a growing sentiment in Congress to curb the advertising of legal vices. Legislators are working on 72 separate bills concerning tobacco products, while another flurry of proposals would impose new restrictions on beer, wine and spirits. Since last November federal law has required warning labels on all containers of alcoholic beverages sold in the U.S. Expanding on that approach, legislation sponsored by Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee and Representative Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts would require spoken health warnings in all TV and radio ads for beer and wine, including toll-free telephone numbers that would provide callers with information on how to cope with alcoholism. The legislation has garnered broad bipartisan support, in part because of studies showing that alcohol abuse costs the U.S. an estimated $136 billion every year. The annual health cost of smoking is about $52 billion.

Congress has been spurred to action by explosive grass-roots campaigns. Consumer activists seem ready to pounce on almost any "target marketing" by tobacco and liquor manufacturers, a reference to advertising that is tailored to appeal to particular groups. Earlier this year, RJR Nabisco canceled plans for two new cigarette brands -- Uptown, aimed at blacks, and Dakota, which targeted uneducated young women -- in the face of heated opposition from consumer-advocacy groups.

The RJR skirmishes galvanized inner-city outrage toward target marketing. In New York City the Rev. Calvin Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church has led whitewashing expeditions through the streets of Harlem to cover up billboards promoting such products. In Chicago a mysterious crusader who calls himself Mandrake has been painting over similar billboards in black and Hispanic neighborhoods. Several billboard companies have responded by voluntarily limiting the placement of certain ads. Since January the Patrick Media Group of Scranton, Pa., has eliminated its ads for cigarettes and liquor near schools and churches in 15 major cities.

The alcohol-fueled rites of spring break are sparking fresh criticism of % aggressive college marketing by brewers. The beer companies insist that they target only students who are legally old enough to drink. But because the legal drinking age is 21 in all 50 states, many students fall under the limit. Brewers often engage in promotions that fail to distinguish among students of different ages. Miller Brewing, for example, sponsors Friday afternoon beer bashes for 2,000 students at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Until local high schools complained that their students were tanking up at the free pours, university officials made little effort to screen participants.

To deflect criticism and forestall restrictive new laws, some brewers are beginning to promote moderation with fresh vigor. Anheuser-Busch, which will spend some $325 million selling its top-ranked Budweiser and other brands this year, has spent $40 million during the past 18 months on its "Know When to Say When" campaign. While the firm broadcast 21 beer ads during the past N.C.A.A. final-four series, for example, it also aired 17 "responsible consumption" messages. As students flocked to spring-break sites in recent weeks, the brewers were advertising a "party smart" theme. In its tent at Daytona Beach, Fla., Miller posted signs reading THINK WHEN YOU DRINK.

Suggestions of restraint, though, were easily overwhelmed by party-hearty marketing themes. In the Miller tent, the company was giving away neon baseball caps to anyone who could show proof of purchase for two cases of the beer. Up the beach, Anheuser-Busch had installed a 20-ft.-tall inflatable six- pack of Budweiser. Poolside at Howard Johnson, Bacardi was advertising rum- and-orange-juice cocktails for 25 cents. Read a marquee outside one beachfront bar: PARTY 'TIL YOU PUKE.

While brewers and distillers may try to put a sober face on spring break, the rite has become a national symbol of teenage alcohol abuse. Students interviewed in Daytona Beach last week said they planned to drink as much as a case of beer every day. Health experts and worried parents blame overzealous advertisers for such youthful excess. Studies cited by the National Council on Alcoholism show that American children see 100,000 TV commercials for beer before they reach age 18, and usually take their first drink by age twelve.

Brewers and distillers fear that their critics may be as successful as the antismoking groups that have sharply curbed tobacco marketing over the past 25 years. After requiring warning labels on cigarette packages in 1965, Congress ) in 1971 banned radio and TV cigarette ads. Says John Ferrell, chief creative officer of the Hill, Holliday agency: "I was working on the Marlboro campaign when the TV-advertising ban came down. I think the same thing is going to happen with beer and wine. It is inevitable." Brewers are especially worried about curbs on broadcast ads, since their primary target group of young men is best reached through TV.

The movement is gaining force in Europe as well. The French government plans to ban all tobacco advertising by 1993 and to restrict alcohol ads to print media. The European Community has called for a ban on TV commercials for tobacco products. Asia has generally been slower to put limits on tobacco and alcohol, but a health movement is beginning to spring up at least partly in response to the arrival of U.S. tobacco marketers.

The new outcry presents a dilemma for cigarette makers, brewers and distillers. If they fight the tide too strenuously, they risk further damage to their public image. But if they reduce their advertising profile too readily, their outlets for marketing could be extremely limited. In their defense, tobacco- and alcohol-industry groups contend that curbs on advertising violate their First Amendment rights to advertise products that are, after all, legal. "These warning-label bills are just another attempt to get around that," says Lauria, the Tobacco Institute spokesman.

The recent outburst against vice marketing seems motivated by a larger social movement, suddenly abloom at the turn of the decade, in which citizens are demanding more socially responsible behavior from individuals and corporations alike. In a fashion, the spirit of the war on drugs has carried over to legal but abusable substances.

Alcohol marketers say the association is unfair. "The advertising issue is primarily an attempt to deal with today's drug abuse, but I'm afraid it misses the mark," says Jeff Becker, a spokesman for the Beer Institute.

To some extent, blaming advertisers for selling products that society has been unable to control by other means is like shooting the messenger. Parents and educators should bear considerable responsibility for instilling sensible notions of behavior. But marketers of alcohol and tobacco have been so effective in making their pitch that society feels the voices must be toned down and balanced. Other states are likely to follow California's lead, multiplying the number of sophisticated challenges to commercial pitches for alcohol and cigarettes. At the same time, other alcohol producers may follow Anheuser-Busch's lead, devoting substantial resources to promoting moderation. If so, the grass-roots movement may go a long way toward achieving its goals with the help of the very producers it opposes.

With reporting by Mary Cronin/New York and William McWhirter/Chicago