I’m a Wired subscriber. This is actually my second time around. I got the magazine early on, before the dotcom bust. It was amazing back then.
I get it now because of some weasel deal (which I can’t remember) that brings it to me for free. I read it. I enjoy it. I’m not sure I’d pay for it (though it is the perfect ‘long flight’ magazine).
Wired takes advertising from cigarette companies. This is a magazine for adults, so I guess I’m not going to object too strenuously.
However (when a paragraph begins “However,” watch out), they carry ads for “Natural American Spirit” cigarettes which I find totally and wholly objectionable. And, again, it’s not just because they’re advertising cigarettes.
Let me quote from the copy on their ‘card stock’ ad, bound in Wired:
In larger, bold letters at the bottom of the page, it says:
Of course, on the back, in what I believe is called a tombstone disclaimer, they write:
The emphasis is theirs, by the way.
OK – so the stuff on the front is puffery (pun intended) and it’s taken away by the stuff on the back. Fine – we all know cigarettes are bad and it’s an adult magazine.
Speaking of their products, the ad continues:
So, you’ve got these free thinking tobacco merchants from Santa Fe bucking the tide by being earthy while they sell their smokes… except… Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company…
That last quote isn’t in the ad. I found it on their web page. And Reynolds American – you remember them?
Reynolds American became their parent company on July 30, 2004, following a business transaction that combined the nation