Cigarettes Don’t Cut Mustard at Ballparks

Ah, the ballpark. That place where you can always count on cold hot dogs, flat beer and a giant Marlboro sign hovering in center field--usually smack above the scoreboard.

The hot dogs and beer aren’t going away. But with the 1993 baseball season officially underway, cigarette ads are being snuffed out of the parks--a trend that may cost the tobacco giants their last best bastion of advertising.

Ever since tobacco advertising was banned from television in 1971, critics contend that tobacco makers have tried to weasel around the law by strategically placing huge billboards in the TV camera’s eye. The two biggest-selling cigarette brands--Philip Morris’ Marlboro and R. J. Reynolds’ Winston--are in practically every ballpark that will let them in.

“It’s the box seats of sports marketing,” said one ad executive who formerly sold ballpark ad space to Philip Morris. “And the tobacco makers have become addicted to them.”

But the tobacco giants--which saw their stock values plummet last week after Philip Morris said it was cutting cigarette prices--may have to find alternative ad venues. Fans who filed into the Houston Astrodome on Monday for the Astros’ season opener saw an odd site in center field: the familiar Marlboro sign had been covered with black plastic. It will remain that way until the Astros find a new advertiser. Tobacco ads have been banned from the park.

Beginning next season, the Seattle Mariners will outlaw tobacco ads in their ballpark. And the 1995 season will be the last one for tobacco ads in Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. Already, a handful of major league parks refuse to accept tobacco advertising, including Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium and San Diego’s Jack Murphy Stadium, where the Padres play. With anti-tobacco sentiment on the rise, Dodger Stadium has also banned smoking in the seating areas and restrooms.

Anaheim Stadium--which also banned smoking in the ballpark--may eventually be pressured to dump its Marlboro billboard. The California Angels do not have a policy on tobacco ads, said Bob Wagner, director of sales and marketing, “but it may well become an issue in Anaheim very soon.”

Meanwhile, New York’s Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets, is itself home to a heated controversy over its center field Marlboro sign. One anti-tobacco group, SmokeFree Educational Services, is running a biting radio ad campaign that compares the Marlboro billboards to ads that push drugs to children. The group is urging New York’s Mayor David Dinkins to dump the signs.

Last year, the group offered to pay $250,000 if the Mets would take down the Marlboro sign and replace it with an anti-smoking message. The Mets declined that offer--and also declined to return phone calls for this article.

“What’s most offensive is that the tobacco companies know it’s illegal to advertise on TV,” said Joseph W. Cherner, president of New York-based SmokeFree. “So why should they be allowed to put these billboards in the most televised place in the stadium?”

Executives at Philip Morris, whose Marlboro ads are still in several dozen professional sports venues, insist that they have no interest in TV exposure for their cigarette brands. “The TV coverage is incidental,” said Karen M. Daragan, a spokeswoman. “Besides, people watching the game on TV aren’t looking at the signage--they’re looking to see if the ball will be caught.”

But critics contend that every time a ball is hit to the outfield, that Marlboro billboard steals the spotlight--essentially cashing in on big-time TV exposure.

One ad executive who sells billboard space for several ballparks--including Anaheim Stadium--said the Marlboro sign at Shea Stadium is especially well-placed. “That sign is seen very, very heavily on TV,” said Jim Nagourney, president of Great Neck, N.Y.-based Spencer Sports Media. “Any time there’s a man on first base, the camera picks it up.”

But at least one firm that tracks television ad time for big marketers says if TV exposure is what tobacco firms are really after, few are getting their money’s worth on stadium scoreboards.

“It’s not a very good buy,” said Joyce Julius, owner of the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based research firm Joyce Julius & Associates. The problem, she said, is that most scoreboard signs don’t get much TV exposure because they are placed too high. In fact, she noted, Marlboro gets the most TV exposure at Cleveland Stadium, where it has also placed a number of ads above the exit tunnels. Because the tunnels are at camera level, they get much more TV time, she said.

But tough new anti-smoking regulations in several cities and objections by outspoken fans are slowly squeezing cigarette ads out of the ballparks. It was public opinion that persuaded Houston Astrodome executives not to renew Marlboro’s contract this season, said Neal Gunn, executive vice president of Astrodome USA.

And even though the scoreboard at Seattle’s Kingdome was originally paid for--at least in part--by giant Marlboro ads, tobacco advertising at the venue will be banned after this season as the result of a new county ordinance. The advertiser replacing Marlboro: McDonald’s. In fact, McDonald’s will eventually be paying $220,000 annually for the signage--about $10,000 more than Philip Morris paid for its Marlboro signs, said Paul Isaki, vice president of business development for the Seattle Mariners.

The Dodgers have never permitted tobacco ads in Dodger Stadium since it opened in 1962. The team won’t even accept tobacco ads in the programs and score cards sold at the park, said Barry Stockhamer, vice president of marketing.

But Unocal, which had been the only advertiser at the park, will be joined this season by Coca-Cola. Coke will have four large, back-lit signs, including one above the giant DiamondVision screen.

When the ad space became available, the Dodgers didn’t even discuss it with any tobacco makers, Stockhamer said. “It’s the Dodgers’ call,” he said. “We just won’t consider it.”

Briefly . . .

The Los Angeles office of McCann-Erickson Worldwide has won the $10-million ad business of Phoenix-based Doubletree Hotels Corp., previously handled by GBF/Ayer Los Angeles. . . . Century City-based Admarketing has picked up the $2-million account of San Dimas-based Raging Waters. . . . The $5-million account for Land’s End, formerly handled by Santa Monica-based Rubin Postaer & Associates, has landed at the New York agency Biederman, Kelly & Shaffer. . . . Select Resources International, a firm that matches advertisers with ad agencies, has opened in Los Angeles.