Light up a Mevius

Hot girls. Because nobody will notice that we are designing, producing, distributing, and promoting a product that, when used as directed, kills you when we use hot girls to launch it.

4 girls holding cancer in their hands.

Sounds like a name for a laptop or keitai model. When this was on the tv news I immediately changed the channel, explaining to my children that this is not "news" in any way. Why give the merchants of death free air time pretending this is something significant?

Geez, never seen so many people agreeing on on thing here on JT, hot girls, but promoting CANCER! I hate smoke and I hate smoking! Has to be one of the most filthy vices on the face of the earth!

Is Japan the only country that has these lavish events and unveiling for a product that kills and sickens thousands of people daily? I wonder if these girls at the end of the day feel guilty or any kind of remorse knowing that someone will die buying and smoking this product?

You think they smoke? Money talks ...

Is Japan the only country that has these lavish events and unveiling for a product that kills and sickens thousands of people daily?

bass4funk -- probably. At least the only one where the government has a huge stake in the largest company that is sickening those folks. Which is why everything they do will get such wide-spread coverage and covered as "news". With the economy going in the dumper, the government can't afford for the replacement of Mild Seven to be anything less than a complete success.

Is Japan the only country that has these lavish events and unveiling for a product that kills and sickens thousands of people daily?

I'm not going to bother to do any research either, but I will say no, and I will say people choose to consume the product.

I wonder if these girls at the end of the day feel guilty or any kind of remorse knowing that someone will die buying and smoking this product?

I wonder how many smoking manner posters they see on stations and the street which also highlight damage to health. If you haven't noticed the anti-smoking drive in this country you need to step out from whatever fog it is that's blocking your vision.

wow - lung cncer and potential death never looked so sexy...

charcoal filter? well at least they are honest.....

nothing beats the bald muscle bound dude a few years ago.

and yes... it still is 1985 here.

it still is 1985 here

And where is your non-representative bubble?

Forget the unfied global design, flagship brand and packaging - in a few countries it will end up in a plain brown box!

Just imagine how much money the government can save in medical spending if everyone stopped smoking.

A lot of the anti-smoking posters are less about 'It is damaging your health' and more about 'Good manners, ' i.e. try not to put the lit end of your cigarette in some child's eye.

I have seen over the years, though, more and more husbands standing alone on their balconies in the dark in the rain for that after-dinner fag (to use a British expression).

Here I was thinking Tobacco advertising was illegal in Japan

That is probably because the posters are by JT - the ones MAKING the cigarettes. They dont want to admit they are unhealthy, they just want people to keep smoking, politely.

To be honest i dont mind about that. If they keep their smoke out of my nose then let them kill themselves; its their life!

But back to this event. Newly named, packaged, and designed box. Umm. Wow. All this over a new box/name?!?!

nothing beats the bald muscle bound dude a few years ago.

I thought that had been erased from my memory. Thanks for bringing back those terrible memories.

more about 'Good manners'

This is one of the contradictions of the Japanese Government having a vested interest in JT.

You think they smoke? Money talks ...

@jojo_in_japan

Money doesn't talk, it swears.

Just imagine how much money the government can save in medical spending if everyone stopped smoking

@CrazyJoe - yes! yes and yes! Totally agree with you. That's why the Australian government sharply ramped up the price on fags a few years back and look what it has done. Smokes quit in droves. This is what Japanese people need to realize, if they haven't already. Unfortunately, methinks the Japan tobacco lobby might be too strong to topple.

This should have no publicity at all, the only publicity tobacco companies should be getting is that they are outlawed and all their profits over the years are being confiscated and dispersed amongst their victims.

Being a former addict hooked in the 60s as a young impressionable 13 year old, took me over 40 years to break free of the stinking habit, I find this ad disgusting and offensive to the extreme.

These models used to stand in front of new, innovative automobiles...

'Guess you got to go where the money is...

You'd think they'd since they're a Japanese brand, they'd choose a name that Japanese people could pronounce properly.

Globally unifying the brand name Mild Seven was too much trouble?

Why is there cigarette advertising (thinly disguised) on Japan Today?

We don't need to see this on these pages.

You'd think they'd since they're a Japanese brand, they'd choose a name that Japanese people could pronounce properly.

They will, they'll call them Mebius.

I am a smoker, and I attempt to quit between 15 and 20 times a day. I forever rue the day I started, and for the number of times I've quit I, and the money I would have saved by not smoking, I could probably be a millionaire by now.

Personally speaking ad campaigns like this, and the adverts on TV from JT, particularly during sporting events, should be banned outright. JT is a HUGE company with interests other than tobacco and has been expanding more and more into the food industry. They see the writing on the wall, but as long as the government doesn't do anything serious in stopping them they will continue to go on as "advertised".

It's mind-boggling to say the least that the government owns such a huge percentage of JT stock yet pays through the butt out of the other hand for medical costs associated with smoking. (Just one more head scratching FACT about Japan.)

People are free to make the choice to smoke, even knowing what they know...That said, the government should simply give up its disingenuous efforts to pretend it doesn't want people to buy its product. Or perhaps turn the theme of its "antismoking" efforts to more of a "You Don't Have to Smoke Them, Just Buy a Lot of Them."

Globally unifying the brand name Mild Seven was too much trouble?

Don't know if you know this or not but the mark above the Mevius name is Mild Seven.

Looks good. Tastes good. Is good.

Don't know if you know this or not but the mark above the Mevius name is Mild Seven.

I used to smoke a pack a day of Mild Seven. Did you read the caption?

Mevius is the new brand name for Mild Seven, one of Japan Tobacco’s global flagship brands, which will have a globally unified design from February 2013.

Probie, my bad....thank you.

It looks like they're holding smartphones.

I see Japan is still pretty much into the 1950's style of pimping out cigarettes.

No wonder the birthrate is dwindling - must be the impotence from all the smoking.

Do they just not tell people of the ill effects of smoking/second hand smoke etc?

And where is your non-representative bubble?

Daijoboots - huh? Did you miss the fact that the J-government refuses to recognize the dangers of second-hand smoke? A fact that most advanced countries have accepted for years. Which is why Japan has probably the most lax smoking versus non-smoking sections and non-smokers' rights ordinances in the world. And why the health minister for New Zealand called Japan a "dinausaur" when it came to their view on smoking and its health risks. How is that "non-representative"?

Second from right for me, please.

Smoking is so OUT !

I just love the new brand name Mevius... I mean... I quit smoking about 6 years ago but that Name and the New Logo really makes me want to start smoking again! Right!

Yubaru-san,

Personally speaking ad campaigns like this, and the adverts on TV from JT, particularly during sporting events, should be banned outright.

I couldn't agree with you more.

I have given up smoking twice. The last time, six years ago, I totally quit. I know I won't smoke again, so I'm not bothered by tobacco advertising. But, there is a period when you are a few days or a few weeks into giving it up when you really don't want to see an ad for cigarettes. It is, after all, designed to make you want to smoke.

Did you miss the fact that the J-government refuses to recognize the dangers of second-hand smoke?

What?

Pretty girls promoting packs of time bombs. I wonder if they'll have a doctor telling a pregnant mum that they are okay in moderation? This really does look like it's from another era. Take away the modern trappings and it's straight out of the 50s.

did they fetch these girls out of their kabukicho-ginza hostess bars for these photo shoot?

Why so much hatred towards smokers... Are they running after you holding their smoke in their mouth to spit at your face deliberately, are they offering cigs to your kids, I know smoking is useless as much as eating candy drinking alcohol and enjoying your time on earth. As a smoker I apologize if I am ruining your life and make you spend so much time hating me. Well time for me to burn one ;-) Don't worry I'll die in pain regretting my choices.

Well, I quit smoking 20 years ago, but seeing this virulent anti-smoker hatred these days I am almost tempted to start smoking again, just to show solidarity with a discriminated minority.

I mean, if the stuff is really that bad, then just outlaw it! But to sell a legal product and then heap all this hatred on the manufacturers and consumers of a legal product, that is just bizarre.

Used to be a heavy smoker (4 packs a day) and a staunch defender of smokers and our right to smoke and I mean staunch, i hated the PC brigade and their stuff about how bad smoking was and how non smokers have the right to be in smoke free enviroment etc etc wanted to smash their faces when they started banging on about it.

Now I'm set against smoking and the sooner its abolished the better.

Smoking has no meritous features at all, it doesnt even look cool any more.

Smoking has no meritous features at all As for a lot of things we do

it doesnt even look cool any more Never intended to be

Those girls have no shame

The problem with smoking is that it isn't a solitary addiction... the smoke moves around and other people breathe it in, people who have never smoked in their lives are having these fumes forced on them.

Everyone agrees that cutting car and factory exhaust is a good and worthy idea and we all want clean air, so why are smokers so reluctant to do the same?

Who's watched "THANK YOU FOR SMOKING"?

According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Ministry (Japan) , 82.3% of males and 15.7% of females 20 and over smoked in 1965. In 2012, 36% of males and 12 % of females smoked.

http://www.health-net.or.jp/tobacco/product/pd090000.html

"In 2012" should be 2011.

Globally unifying the brand name Mild Seven was too much trouble?

You're missing the point. They changed the name because the word MILD cannot be used for cigarette names in some countries. That said, I quit and I don't want to smoke again.

That cigarette packaging looks like it was inspired by an MP3 player or a smart phone. My guess it that the marketing is going to be targeted at the iPhone and iPod crowd. Maybe they're taking a page out of Apple's product development book. If Sony were to design a cigarette pack, what would it look like?

It is not hatred of Smokers... it is hatred of the idea that Renaming a common well selling brand and throwing some pretty and healthy looking women up on stage to promote it. I don't really have anything against smokers but I do dislike the idea that Japan Tobacco, which is still partly owned by the Govt of Japan, is trying to sell more cigarettes.

globally unified design, hahaha....... well that design won't work in many 1st world countries since it would be illegal

Just do not like smoking! It fouls the air and is very deadly. Smoking kills more Japanese than road accidents. Worse their second hand smoke kills non addicts. As for the girls, well times are tough in Japan and work is work.

Smoking is deadly and makes people sick. There is no safe amount of cigarettes that can be smoked. They are a danger to the smokers and people around them. Oh and smokers smell bad! I can tell a smoker from 15 or more feet from me by their stink. So these girls are promoting, fire hazard, health problems for all (cancer, lung, heart), bad breath, damaged clothing and they themselves STINK.

....clothing and they themselves STINK....

And, no matter how much perfume they put on, they still smell like ashtray.

@Kakukakushikajika:

Why so much hatred towards smokers... Are they running after you holding their smoke in their mouth to spit at your face deliberately, are they offering cigs to your kids, I know smoking is useless as much as eating candy drinking alcohol and enjoying your time on earth. As a smoker I apologize if I am ruining your life and make you spend so much time hating me. Well time for me to burn one ;-) Don't worry I'll die in pain regretting my choices.

May sound awful to some people but Kakukakushikajika is right. I'm an occasional smoker 'cause I want to be. I know the risks and all. If most japanese people fall adictive for this vice isn't really the tobacco brand's fault. May sound awful to you but, pollution kills people too, car accidents, other type of cancer, etc.

FACT: There's people who NEVER smoked and dies of lung cancer. FACT!: There's people who ALAWAYS smoked and perfectly healthy.

It's really a decision of each person. And some of us like to smoke. Sorry!

Please don't light up a Mevius. Only good thing about this name change is that Mevius sounds like a disease.

Fact is that smoking causes cancer. There are those genetically lucky people who can smoke their heads off a die in their 90s. Most of us are like Raymond Carver, Audrey Hepburn, John Steinbeck and a host of others who'd lived longer if they did not smoke.

@jomonjeulmun

good point. it looks like the word "original" could be "digital", surrounded as it is by swirling bits.

advertisers are some of the most sociopathic people on the planet.

If you smoke, there will be some people who are inconvenienced by your smoking.

If you don't smoke, your non-smoking will inconvenience nobody.

Just an aside, heavy perfume use can be JUST AS OBNOXIOUS as tobacco fumes!

Yuriotani:

" Smoking is deadly and makes people sick. There is no safe amount of cigarettes that can be smoked. "

You can say the same thing about sugar. Shall we start harrasing candy eaters like this?