Joe Camel

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Joe Camel (officially Old Joe) was the advertising mascot for Camel cigarettes from late 1987 to July 12, 1997, appearing in magazine advertisements, billboards, and other print media. Prior to 1987, the character had appeared in animated television advertisements.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Controversy 1.2 Resemblance to Male Genitalia 2 Joe Camel in popular culture 3 References

[edit] History

Joe Camel was conceived in the 1950s by an unknown art director in France working on a T-shirt promotion for the brand in Europe. The R.J. Reynolds U.S. marketing team, looking for an idea to promote Camel's 75th anniversary, re-discovered Joe in the company's archives in the late 1980s. At that time, R.J. Reynolds' staff found that the Camel brand had a reputation as an "old-man's cigarette." The staff wanted a new campaign to make the brand more attractive to contemporary smokers.

[edit] Controversy

In 1991, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study^[1] showing that more children 5 and 6 years old could recognize Joe Camel than could recognize Mickey Mouse or Fred Flintstone, and alleged that the "Joe Camel" campaign was supposedly targeting children—despite R.J. Reynolds' contention that the campaign had been researched only among adults and was directed only at the smokers of other brands. At that time it was estimated that over 30% of all cigarettes sold in the U.S. were Marlboros. Subsequently, the American Medical Association asked R.J. Reynolds Nabisco to pull the campaign. R.J. Reynolds refused, and the Joe Camel Campaign continued. In 1993 and 1994, more appeals to end the campaign followed.

In response to the criticism, they instituted "Let's Clear the Air on Smoking," a campaign of full-page magazine advertisements consisting entirely of text, typically set in large type, denying those charges, and declaring that smoking is "an adult custom."

Under pressure from Congress and various public-interest groups, on July 10, 1997, RJR announced it would voluntarily end its Joe Camel campaign and cease to disseminate all ads showing the character. A new campaign with a more adult theme debuted; instead of Joe Camel, it had a plain image of a quadrupedal, non-anthropomorphic camel.

R.J. Reynolds to this day has denied Joe Camel was intended to be directed at children; the company maintains that Joe Camel's target audience was 25–49-year-old males and current Marlboro smokers.

[edit] Resemblance to Male Genitalia

An Urban Legend of sorts is the resemblance of Joe Camel's nose and snout to that of a penis and scrotum, perhaps as subliminal advertising. This speculation was undoubtedly fed by the existing legend of the image of the "Naked Man" on the front of Camel cigarette packages.

[edit] Joe Camel in popular culture

• In The Simpsons episode "Lisa the Beauty Queen," a fictional cigarette company: The "Laramie Tobacco Company" uses a mascot called "Menthol Moose," a cartoony character that hands cigarettes out to kids. It is a clear parody of the Joe Camel character.
• Mad once ran a parody ad showing Joe Camel being diagnosed with cancer of the hump.
• Doonesbury's Mr. Butts, an anthropomorphic cartoon cigarette who encourages children to smoke, may be seen as a parody of Joe Camel. In one Doonesbury strip, Mr. Butts meets up with Joe Camel at a cocktail party, who comments "If I were animated I would own this generation! OWN it!"
• The "Joe Camel" concept was spoofed in the South Park episode, "Underpants Gnomes", when a maker of coffee tried to "appeal to the younger crowd" by making up a cartoon mascot. The mascot was named "Camel Joe" (which was probably chosen because it sounds like Cameltoe), who was later lambasted by a mother for trying to "Push caffeine on children".
• In the Futurama episode "Where the Buggalo Roam," Joe Camel appears and is introduced as "...my friend, Joe; kids love him," clearly a reference to the child marketing controversy. Later in the same episode, Joe also comments: "Sorry I'm late, my pool game ran long at the jazz club."
• In the Family Guy episode Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington, Peter, who becomes the president of a tobacco organization, is shown in magazine ads. One of the ads depicts him with Joe Camel's nose and mouth.
• In The Simpsons episode "Sideshow Bob Roberts", the Rush Limbaugh-esque character, Birch Barlow, lists Joe Camel as one of the political prisoners of the liberal justice system.
• An episode of TV Funhouse featured a cross-parody between Joe Camel and Pokémon called Jokàmel, which mixed the use of Joe Camel as a youth-oriented marketing strategy with the popularity of the Pokémon franchise to further market cigarettes to children (the main creature, a cross between Joe Camel and Pikachu smoked a cigarette-like creature to become more powerful, and there were various Jokàmel/cigarette related products "advertised"). The sketch also parodied the resemblance of Joe Camel's face to male genitalia.
• On Doug, a chewing tobacco-like product called Nick-Nacks intended only for adults, becomes pouplar with some of Doug's friends at school. The product's mascot was "The Nick-Nack Yak", an obivous parody of Joe Camel.
• Joe Camel has appeared twice in Drawn Together, as a patient in Foxxy Vs the Board of Education and N.ray ray as a dead body".
• Joe Camel is an alias for one of Phroth Humor Magazine's writers.

[edit] References