Ruling Extends Joe Camel’s Life Marlboro Man And Winston Cup Also Kept Alive By Federal Judge

The Marlboro man can keep riding the range while Joe Camel prowls urban nightspots in billboard advertising as a result of a federal judge’s tobacco ruling.

The ruling also may have improved chances that Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone and dozens of other magazines with sizable numbers of readers under 18 can hold on to their tobacco advertisers.

And it enables tobacco companies to keep their names on race cars, drivers’ uniforms and sports events.

“Joe Camel lives … Winston Cup is alive. Billboards are alive,” said John Fithian, an attorney representing the American Advertising Federation.

As part of a far-reaching tobacco case decision, U.S. District Judge William L. Osteen Sr. ruled Friday in North Carolina that the Food and Drug Administration had no authority over tobacco advertising and promotions even though the agency did have the right to regulate how cigarettes are sold and labeled.

The action suspends the FDA’s impending imposition of limits on tobacco advertising and marketing.

The limits were designed mostly to diminish tobacco’s powerful attraction for youngsters.

Under FDA rules set to take effect in August, tobacco companies would have been able to advertise only in black-and-white on billboards. That would have barred the rugged Western vistas often used for Marlboro cigarette ads as well as the glimpses of nightlife frequently featured for Camels.

The rules also would have required similar black-and-white tobacco ads in magazines which draw more than 15 percent of the readership from people under 18.

No tobacco advertising at all would have been allowed on billboards within 1,000 feet of a school or playground.

The rules banning tobacco sports sponsorship would have gone into effect in August 1998.

The tobacco industry spends more than $5 billion a year on marketing cigarettes and other products.

Industry executives were happy that the judge struck down the FDA’s effort to regulate advertising, but they recognized that the case would be appealed.

“This marks the end of another battle but it’s not the end of the war,” said Hal Shoup, executive vice president of the American Association of Advertising Agencies.

Tobacco advertising accounted for about $180 million in billboard ad revenue, or 10 percent of the national total, last year, according to figures from the Outdoor Advertising Association of America.

“We are pleased … but we also understand this is far from over,” said Nancy Fletcher, president of the trade group.

She said outdoor sign owners had expected that tobacco advertisers wouldn’t buy billboard space for black-and-white ads.

When a similar restriction went into effect in Canada in 1990, she said the “tobacco industry pulled off.” She said the prohibition has since been repealed there and tobacco companies are back.

Nonetheless, the billboard industry has become less reliant on tobacco ads.

Tobacco lost its standing as the biggest billboard advertiser in 1992 and now ranks second to entertainment and amusements. Tobacco ads have been banned from some billboards.