Posted on: Thursday, July 29, 2004

EDITORIAL
Kaua'i brand cigarette does no favors for us

No doubt someone thought it was cute: Come up with a new variety of Camel cigarette, one with flavors added to appeal to the trendy, the bored and — yes — the young.

One of these new cigarette "flavors" is named Twista Lime. The other, to the consternation of a lot of folks on the Garden Island, is called Kauai Kolada, and it will be flavored with a "hint of pineapple and coconut."

Now, the cigarette company undoubtedly has a legal right to use Kaua'i's name (and by implication its image) in selling cigarettes. But that doesn't make it a smart decision.

Effectively, Kaua'i is a brand image. It conjures up thoughts of clean water, clean air, tropical foliage, a paradise experience and, as someone said, a "healing place."

The image of cigarette smoking, despite every marketing effort to the contrary, is almost precisely the opposite of this.

It's possible, of course, to get too worked up about all this. After all, various Hawai'i images have been used to sell all manner of products over the years, not all of them particularly savory.

A more serious problem is the target audience of this new product. These are effectively "candy" cigarettes that would have little appeal to established smokers, the folks the cigarette companies say they are selling to.

Instead, this product is obviously aimed at kids, young people who are just now considering whether they should start smoking or not.

Tobacco-Free Kauai and elected officials were swiftly, and appropriately, on the mark with a complaint that this ad campaign is offensive to Hawai'i.

They're absolutely correct. This is an advertising effort no one on Kaua'i, or anywhere in Hawai'i for that matter, would wish to be associated with.