From: anne@tobaccodocuments.org
Date: Mon, 01/09/06
Anne LandmanPosting Date: January 8, 2006
Project Breakthrough.
Document Date: 1994
Length: 4 pages
Bates No. 513206927/6930
URL of this Summary: http://tobaccodocuments.org/landman/513206927-6930.html
(Document images not currently available at this URL)
Document Images: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/oia13a00
In 1994, the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company "orchestrated a massive,
unprecedented public relations blitz," (1) aimed at linking tobacco control
efforts directly to Prohibition in the public mind, even though the prohibition
of tobacco has never been a stated goal of public health authorities in the
U.S.. (Prohibition was an American social movement in the 1920s and 1930s in the
U.S. that attempted to eliminate the sale and use of alcohol. It is generally
considered to have been extreme and to have ended in failure.) RJR called the
effort "Project Breakthrough." It was described this way in a planning
document:
"PROJECT BREAKTHROUGH
1. Objective: create a campaign which frames and answers this question: Does
America want prohibition? Will we tolerate a puritanical wave to infringe, to
restrict and possibly to eliminate personal freedoms and individual choices?
2.Goals:
* reframe the debate: efforts all aim at return to prohibition, either
front-door or back-door.
* make prohibition a clear and present danger now in our society; give it
pejorative currency similar to the tax and spend issue in the early 1980s.
* directly tie the anti-smoker rhetoric with the stigma of prohibition; that's
what they really want.
* spread the stigma to others: who's next; alcohol, beef, pork, private
property, logging, fur, cholesterol, motorcycles, and others.
The campaign had several different phases designed generally to instill fear
in Americans that rules restricting smoking would lead to increased crime and
smuggling, economic failure, inability to purchase and use a host of other
products, and the elimination of civil rights and freedoms.
Sample Project Breakthrough ads can be seen at the following URLs:
"COME OUT SLOWLY SIR, WITH YOUR CIGARETTE ABOVE YOUR HEAD."
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ogp61d00
"TODAY IT'S CIGARETTES. TOMORROW?"
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/dhp61d00
"NO SMOKING. IS THE GOVERNMENT GOING TOO FAR?"
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ehp61d00
RJR ran these ads, and many others like them, in 32 major American daily
newspapers, plus magazines like TIME, U.S. News and World Report,(2) Vanity
Fair,(3) ethnically targeted publications like Blacks in Law Enforcement,(4),
and popular publications like Rolling Stone and People. Other campaign
components included direct mailings to individuals and a "video petition" sent
to legislators in Washington, D.C.
The campaign appears to have lasted about 4 years. RJR considered the
effort successful, according to an October, 1994 update on the project prepared
by Thomas Griscom, Executive Vice President of External Relations and sent to
Charles M. Harper, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of RJR Nabisco Holdings
Corp. Griscom's report claimed the campaign resulted in decreased support for
raising the federal tax on cigarettes, generated 29,000 calls to a toll-free
hotline, and put the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on the
defensive, among other successes.
"Project Breakthrough" appears to have been RJR's response to a number of
public health initiatives occuring at the time, including the broadcast of an
ABC news program ("Day One") about spiking of nicotine in cigarettes, the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration's efforts to regulate nicotine as a drug, a
proposal to fund health care nationally through an increase in the federal
cigarette tax.
This document links the argument that smoking laws are a form prohibition
directly to RJR.
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Notes:
(1) Description taken from PROJECT BREAKTHROUGH 1995 BRIEFING MANUAL
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/ebv80d00
(2) http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/kgp61d00,
(3) http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/vac25a00,
(4) http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/vuc13a00
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Quotes
PROJECT BREAKTHROUGH
1. Objective: create a campaign which frames and answers this question: Does
America want prohibition? Will we tolerate a puritanical wave to infringe,to
restrict and possibly to eliminate personal freedoms and individual choices?
2.Goals:
*reframe the debate: efforts all aim at return to prohibition, either
front-door or back-door.
*make prohibition a clear and present danger now in our society; give it
pejorative currency similar to the tax and spend issue in the early 1980s.
*directly tie the anti-smoker rhetoric with the stigma of prohibition; that's
what they really want.
*spread the stigma to others: who's next; alcohol, beef, pork, private
property, logging, fur, cholesterol, motorcycles, and others.
*answer the question: Enough is enough?
3. Virtually every aspect of the tobacco debate can be traced back to
one,overriding issue: prohibition. But the prohibition movement extends much
further,touching the basic fabric of our founding principles: personal freedom
and choice, without excessive government interference. This provides a
positioning which can be both narrowly focused on tobacco but also expanded to
other behaviors, products, and lifestyles.
[From Page 2:]
4.Structure: To effectively develop the issue of prohibition,a campaign team
will be created. That requires a candidate (American public,smokers,other
consumers)and an opponent (government, activists, do-gooders, free spenders,
thought police). Every activity is tied back to the central theme (prohibition)
but develops as a free standing issue. This allows consistency and focus but
also maximum flexibility in bringing coalition partners into the campaign ... A
key element throughout the plan is to stay one step ahead; plan and anticipate;
control the agenda, the message; be quick, punch and counter-punch; be
unpredictable; create a hard position, drive opponents to the other corner and
fill the middle (fill up the game board).
[From Page 3:]
There needs to be an historical launching point to reinforce with the American
public the fear and failure of prohibition. This underpinning will substantiate
the 80%+ rejection of the notion of prohibition. This positioning also provides
the legal (constitutional) foundation and stretches the issue into what results:
crime, black markets, illegal products, tax evasion, American citizen against
American citizen based on product use and control of information and thought.
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Company
R.J. Reynolds
Author
Unknown. Found in the area of James W. Johnson, RJR Chairman
Recipient
N/A
Region
United States
Named Organization
Americans for Tax Reform
Citizens for a Sound Economy (Powerful industry-funded think tank that
promotes deregulation)
Rogers & Cowan, public relations agency
Named Person
Synehorst, T.
Bryant, S.
Breglio, V.
Powell, J.
Doig, J.
Roper
Bryant, J.
Elliott, T.
Brady, J.
Operation/Project
Project Breakthrough (RJR '94 ad project to portray tobacco control as a
return to Prohibition of the 1920s-30s
Massive advertising campaign to link public health efforts around tobacco to a
re-emergence of Prohibition of the 1920s and 1930s.
Type
REPORT
Subject
Corporate strategy
advertising activity
advertising campaign
advertising effectiveness
advertising message
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Anne Landman
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