Hats off to the BBC for bringing to our attention the new national TV adverts for Blu e-cigs in the US.
A new TV advert for a brand of electronic cigarettes marks the first time in decades cigarettes of any sort have been promoted on US television.Oof! That must have been as welcome as a tactically-placed kick in the love spuds, eh?
A handsome actor poses and struts on a beach in a stylishly shot black-and-white television spot. He puts the cigarette to his lips, takes a puff, and exhales a rich flume.
"Blu lets me enjoy smoking without it affecting the people around me, because it's vapour not tobacco smoke," says Stephen Dorff, the scruffy heartthrob star of The Immortals.
"We're all adults here, it's time we take our freedom back."Doncha just love that tagline? Here it is in context.
Now, I've always spoken in favourable terms of e-cigs. One of the reasons being that I could see the huge potential for irritating the bejaysus out of the fake coughing and arm-waving community, but this is even more deliciously forthright than I imagined the entry of Lorillard into the market would be.
Even as the tobacco control industry - in an effort to save pharmaceutical NRT profits by maximising cigarette sales - launch an all-out assault, mostly in the US, on e-cigs, the battle still seems to be getting away from them. This is national exposure on a scale never seen before, and for every shrill voice against them there must be a few thousand seeing this product for the first time thanks to Stephen Dorff's ad.
The same 'people power' I mentioned as having stymied the MHRA's plans to ban them over here is now creating a tipping point that is almost impossible for the more irrational, and irresponsible, tobacco controllers to counter.
Must hurt the big one. Eh, Duncan?
All those decades cultivating an environment where finger-wagging and tutting is acceptable behaviour towards the choices of others, and now they have to do it all over again with the new market entrant. And it came right out of the Blu, as it were."Time we take our freedom back". Ha! Love it!
UPDATE: SteveVape expands on the ire this ad has caused to anti-smokers, and reckons such publicity will be banned sharpish. The difference is, there is a huge corporation batting for e-cigs now instead of a few inspired entrepreneurs. If Steve is correct, it will be fun to watch the tobacco control industry show themselves up as venal and uninterested in health again.
Win/win.
