is asking the Federal Trade Commission for comments on an advertisement that tells users "I was a smoker but my wife hated the smoke... No secondhand smoke".
The ad promotes USSTC's Revel brand of tobacco, which the company says is a blend of "premium tobaccos and fresh mint or wintergreen flavour in clean, neat, discreet, easy-to-use packs".
However, the company is unlikely to get the advertising passed without protest from health groups, such as . The organisation's website accuses USSTC of targeting children with its marketing. It also says that the company has been in trouble for a 1999 advertising campaign in a university newspaper offering an all-expenses-paid trip to the Playboy mansion and a $1 coupon.
The chewing tobacco market is a growing one in the US as public smoking is banned more and more . From 1985 to 1999, the total marketing expenditures of the top-five smokeless tobacco companies in the US has more than doubled in line with sales and revenues. In 1999, these "spit" or chewing tobacco companies spent more than $170m (拢106.4m) on marketing.
USSTC says that it does not need permission to advertise, but that it is seeking views on how it communicates "important and accurate information to adult smokers and non-smokers annoyed by secondhand smoke".
The company is trying to promote Revel as an alternative to smoking tobacco. Richard Verheij, executive vice-president for external affairs, said: "Our advertisement makes no claim about the relative health risk of smokeless tobacco as compared to cigarettes. Rather, it highlights what should be a reason why adult smokers, when faced with the reaction of others to their smoking, should switch to Revel."
The company claims that people using Revel "felt no need to expectorate". The company is the leading producer and marketer of what it describes as moist, smokeless tobacco products.
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