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Correspondence between Essential Action & Warner Bros From:
Anna White Subject:
RE: Urgent: BAT's use of WB films in Nigeria -- please reply by Monday! Dear Anna: From: Anna White Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 To: Veronika Kwan-Rubinek Subject: Re: Urgent: BAT's use of WB films in Nigeria -- please reply byMonday! Dear Veronika, Thanks very much for getting back to me on this. To follow up, would it be possible for Warner Bros. to issue a statement confirming that it did not give British American Tobacco (or one of its agents) the rights to distribute these five films in Nigeria? Our colleagues in Nigeria would find this very useful. Also, if indeed British American Tobacco is using these film without permission, is Warner Bros. planning any course of action against the company? Thanks, Anna White Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control Essential Action P.O. Box 19405 Washington, DC 20036 Tel: 202-387-8030 Fax: 202-234-5176 Email: [email protected] From: Veronika
Kwan-Rubinek Subject:
Re: FW: Urgent: BAT's use of WB films in Nigeria -- please replybyMonday! Dear Veronika, Thanks very much for following up on this issue. We are glad to hear that Warner Bros plans to send a "cease and desist" letter to British American Tobacco. Do you know when this letter will be sent? And would you be able to send us a copy of the letter? I'm not sure if Warner Bros is fully aware of the extent to which its film have been featured in British American Tobacco's marketing campaign for its Rothmans cigarette brand. In a moment, I will forward you two articles on the campaign, as well as a report on the campaign written by one of our Nigerian colleagues. As an organization that monitors the tobacco industry's activities worldwide, we regularly get reports about the tobacco industry's marketing campaigns abroad. But even we were shocked by the scope and audacity of this campaign, the blatant linking of Hollywood with smoking initiation. Is Warner Bros planning to seek financial compensation for British American Tobacco's unauthorized use of its films? If so, we recommend donating any and all financial compensation received to Nigerian tobacco control groups. This would help, in part, to compensate for the immense damage British American Tobacco's use of Warner Bros films has done to Nigerian tobacco control efforts -- and ultimately to the public health of the Nigerian population. No doubt the campaign is responsible for addicting many young people to cigarettes. Unfortunately, Nigerian tobacco control groups have little funding at their disposal to effectively counter the well-financed marketing campaigns of multinational tobacco companies like British American Tobacco. We would be happy to work with the World Health Organization to help you identify Nigerian groups that do good tobacco control work and could benefit from additional funding. We are also wondering if Warner Bros has made a decision yet about issuing a public statement to confirm that the company did not give British American Tobacco permission to use its movies? In particular, we recommend that the public statement include a pledge to: 1) turn down all requests from the tobacco industry and its agents to use Warner Bros films. 2) take legal action against any tobacco company that distributes or uses images from Warner Bros films in their promotional campaigns. Our colleagues in Nigeria would find such a statement useful in countering the damage British American Tobacco's campaign has done. In answer to your question about the capacity in which our organization is involved in this issue, let me briefly describe what we do. Essential Action's "Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control" project links tobacco control groups in the U.S. and Canada with groups in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Central/Eastern Europe and facilitates their working together on meaningful joint projects and campaigns. Currently, there are over 350 groups from more than 100 countries involved -- including approximately 150 from the U.S. One of the main activities our partners are involved in is the regular monitoring of the tobacco industry's nefarious activities outside of the U.S. Whenever possible, we try to address issues that come to our attention. So, when our colleagues in Nigeria alerted us to this outrageous British American Tobacco campaign, it was a typical course of action for us to investigate the issue further and then follow up on it, i.e. contact your company. In our opinion, British American Tobacco's unauthorized use of Warner Bros movies to promote smoking to young Africans is a very serious matter, and we hope that it will be dealt with as such. Again, thanks for following up on this. We look forward to your responses to the above questions. Best wishes, January 15, 2003: Warner Bros attorney Damon Bonesteel called Essential Action. He thanked us for bringing the issue to the company's attention, but informed us that in order "not to hurt their legal position", we should expect no further email or phone correspondence from the company. Nor do they plan to issue a public statement at this time. The lawyer said that WB agrees that the issue (which, according to him, was "news to them") is "serious", but they have "no timeline" for dealing with it. We were warned that further correspondence between us or "publicity" could "hurt" their efforts to deal with the issue. In other words: the company does not plan to cooperate on the issue in a transparent manner. |