Tobacco ads in Canadian magazines? Don't hold your breath

Resurgent print ads for tobacco could be coming, but don't expect too much or very soon. According to a story by James Adams in the Globe and Mail, a lot of people in the ad game say there won't be a deluge of print ads as the result of last week's Supreme Court decision upholding the 1997 Tobacco Act. In fact, the limited rights to advertise that the tobacco companies have were contained in the act and they mostly didn't use them. Many publishing companies have instituted policies not to carry tobacco ads anyway. And ad agencies aren't sure what the ads would say, given that the many restrictions on placement and content.

Indeed, companies such as The Globe and Mail and Rogers Consumer Publishing now have policies not to take tobacco advertising and yesterday a representative of Rogers, which, in fact, publishes Flare as well as Chatelaine (Canada's most successful magazine with total estimated revenue in 2006 of $56.3-million), Maclean's, Hello! and Canadian Business, said the company was "not going to reopen the debate on carrying such ads based on last week's court decision."

Of course, if Fashion magazine went for a tobacco ad, you can bet that Flare's publisher would feel under pressure to do the same.

Simon Potter, a Montreal lawyer reprsenting the tobacco companies, says that his clients have been doing without print advertising for so long, "whatever advertising does come back will be very limited."

Moreover, having not done print advertising for so long, the tobacco companies are going to be "asking very hard questions ... on the arithmetic," Potter said, of buying ads and the rate of return they expect from such buys.